MANLIUS — The Manlius Town Board is in the process of developing guidelines for how marijuana dispensaries and lounges will be regulated.
Last week, in order to better understand the ramifications of their decisions, the board enlisted three outside experts from the cannabis industry to attend a work session with the board and answer questions about how to manage marijuana sales in the town.
Nick Agrippino, originally from Manlius, is a certified public accountant with Bowers & Company who heads up the firm’s cannabis and hemp practice. He outlined for the town board what could be expected in annual marijuana sales within Manlius.
The town has approximately 32,000 residents but taking into account neighboring towns that have opted out of the state’s new marijuana law, the market for marijuana sales in the town of Manlius is approximately 74,000 people. Based on projections derived from per capita sales in areas where marijuana has already been legalized, Agrippino estimated there would be between $7 and $10 million in annual marijuana sales in Manlius.
Marijuana will be taxed at 13%, of which 9% will go to the state, 1% to the county, and 3% to the municipality, so based on Agrippino’s projections, the town could receive between $200,000 and $300,000 in revenue from marijuana sales. Of the three villages in the town, only the village of Fayetteville has opted to allow dispensaries. The local share of tax revenue from any dispensaries in Fayetteville would be split evenly between the village and the town.
As for where in the town dispensaries will be allowed, F.L. Gorman, an attorney whose practice focuses on the cannabis industry, warned the town board against making the siting of dispensaries so prohibitive that the businesses couldn’t survive. He suggested treating dispensaries like any other retail shop, noting that the state law does have provisions for the distance between a dispensary and schools or places of worship.
“You’re better off having them in prime retail areas so that the store is going to be a successful store,” Gorman told the councilors.
As far as where marijuana can be grown, currently it is not listed as an agricultural product, although that could change, said Brittany Carbone, the owner of TONIC CBD and the co-founder of Tricolla Farms, a marijuana farm in Wantaugh, New York.
Most marijuana that is sold for personal adult use is grown indoors in warehouse facilities where temperature, humidity, pests and light can all be controlled, Carbone said. The facilities are expensive to operate and use a lot of energy, but with indoor farming you can have up to four crops a year and the yield tends to be larger and of a higher quality, she said.
“For the market and consumer blends people demand indoor quality flower,” Carbone said. “The ability to really control your environment is incredibly important when growing really top shelf cannabis.”
Because the cost of growing indoors is high, those costs are pushed down to consumers. With her own farm, Carbone is betting on a future where there is more outdoor growing because the cost of entry into the business and the cost of production is lower so the cost to the consumer will be lower as well.
It is unlikely that any indoor growers would find a home in Manlius because there is little industrial zoning outside of the area around the CSX railway. However, there may be opportunities for outdoor growers to start farming in Manlius and in neighboring towns where farmland is plentiful. Current farmers who would like to begin growing marijuana on a portion of their land would likely wait until the state lists it as an agricultural crop for fear of losing the tax advantages they currently receive from the state, Carbone said.
Carbone also said that outdoor growing, there are security issues, which she says can be responsibly remedied, as well as challenges with odors from the plants.
“I’m not going to lie, we stink up our entire valley with our crop,” she said. “But nobody complains.”
“In my mind, that’s a lot of the feedback that I get is the security issues, the odor, the nuisance type of stuff,” Supervisor John Deer said.
Because of federal financial laws, dispensaries do not allow straight credit card purchases, so many have ATMs on site and handle their transactions strictly in cash. Because of the product they sell and the amount of cash on hand, the state has strict security regulations for dispensaries, similar to a bank or a jewelry store, Agrippino said.
“These establishments are going to be very secure,” he said.
Carbone said she expects the state to put out draft regulations in four to five weeks, followed by a 60-day comment period and projected that the application process for dispensaries will open up in mid-2023.
“I know this was invaluable to us to get an understanding of where the industry is going and how it is developing and making sure that whatever regulations we put in place are very intentional and meaningful,” Deer said in closing the session.
Deer encouraged residents to use the public comment form on the town’s website to provide feedback on local marijuana regulation.
