The Village of Owego Board of Trustees voted during a meeting on Monday, Nov. 15, to cancel two laws that would have restricted the sale and on site consumption of marijuana, which means that come Dec. 31 the village will have opted in for businesses in the village to do both. During the same meeting, which was at times contentious, the Board voted 5-2 against an addition to the local flood law.
“As far as the marijuana goes, we had two local laws proposed to opt out, one was to opt out of retail sales. And the other was to opt out of on site consumption. And after the public hearing and discussion we voted to cancel both laws, which means we are opted in for both things,” said the Village of Owego Mayor, Mike Baratta.
Baratta said the two laws to opt out were crafted in order to trigger a public hearing on the matter so that the board could receive public input.
“No one from the public came in opposition to marijuana. Everyone there was really in support of the legal sale and consumption of it,” said Baratta, adding, “I was surprised no one spoke in opposition and I think that sent a clear message to me and a lot of the board members.”
The consumption of marijuana in New York State is legal; no municipality can opt out of allowing consumption. Instead, the state is allowing local municipalities to opt out of on site consumption or the sale.
“If we do opt in we get tax revenue, if we don’t, we get nothing,” Baratta said.
As it stands, with the village opting in they are set to receive a minimum of 1.5 percent of sales tax revenue generated from marijuana sales.
“If the town of Owego opts in we will split 3 percent of the tax revenue between us; If the town opts out we will collect the full 3 percent,” Baratta said.
As to what the Town of Owego will do, Baratta said he wouldn’t speculate.
With consumption being part of the “opt in,” businesses will be able to allow a room, similar to a cigar room, or allow a business to serve food with marijuana in it.
“These businesses want to help out our community, I don’t think they are trying to be Tony Montana or like a cartel,” said Trustee Charles Plater during Monday’s meeting.
While Baratta said he was pleasantly surprised at how smoothly the marijuana portion of the meeting went, he readily acknowledged that things became contentious between board members during the discussion of the flood law.
“My reason to vote against it had nothing to do with the specific development, and I agree with [New York State Department of Environmental Conservation] that there is a way to accomplish this goal without being so restrictive. There are a lot of projects coming in and it would affect a lot of them, it just makes it more development friendly and I think there is still a safe way to mitigate flooding without it,” Baratta added.
According to Baratta, the issue was that the original flood law passed almost a decade ago included a paragraph that was deemed by the DEC to be too restrictive, and one that required property owners within the floodplain to remove equal mass of earth to whatever project has been added, such as a garage.
In May the Board voted 5-2 to remove the passage and then constructed a potential law with some tweaks to replace it. However, that law has now failed, meaning any potential replacement would need to start the process all over again.
“This is not about a specific project, this is about all projects,” said Baratta.
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