Brick Settles With Denied Medical Marijuana Company

The former bank at 385 Adamston Road, which was proposed to be a medical marijuana facility, now has a for sale sign out front and is overgrown with grass and weeds. (Photo by Judy Smestad-Nunn)

  BRICK – The township has settled a lawsuit with 385 Adamston, LLC, a company that applied for a medical marijuana dispensary at the site of the former OceanFirst Bank on Adamston Road.

  The owner of the 6.7-acre property, Anne Davis, planned to call the business Jersey Shore Therapeutic Health Care. Council meetings became standing room only as opponents, who were largely from the Adamston Road neighborhood, and proponents of the facility had heated exchanges.

  After getting pushback from neighbors, Davis changed her application to remove sales from the plan and use the land for cultivation only in a proposed 48,000 square foot grow house, which did nothing to appease nearby homeowners.

  In a third application revision in February 2019, Davis said she wanted to use the site to grow lettuce indoors, which the Zoning Board ruled not “customary and conventional” as is allowed in a Rural Residential zone where the former bank is located.

  Davis’s attorney, Dennis M. Galvin filed a 108-page lawsuit in state Superior Court against the township Planning Board, Board of Adjustment, Township Clerk and Brick Township, saying, in part, that the rights of Jersey Shore Therapeutic Health Care had been violated since a farm is a permitted use in the zone.

  In August 2019 Township Attorney Kevin Starkey explained that Jersey Shore Therapeutic Health Care filed their application in front of the Planning Board, saying it was a permitted use. The Planning Board disagreed and sent the application to the Zoning Board to determine whether it was a permitted use or not.

  The applicant had a hearing before the Zoning Board on that issue and they lost, Starkey said.

  “What they’re saying is, as a technical matter, we filed our paperwork with the Planning Board, and the Planning Board should have done something,” he said.

  The Planning Board did do something, Starkey said: they took action which was to send it to the Zoning Board for a response.

  The township, the Board of Adjustment and the Planning Board were defendants in the lawsuit brought on by Adamston, LLC who were sued for denying the application.

  The settlement was reviewed and approved by the Board of Adjustment and the Planning Board, said Council President Lisa Crate during the most recent Township Council meeting.

  As part of the settlement, Davis agreed not to make any application for any type of marijuana facility in the township.

  Also, she may not knowingly sell the property to a buyer who wants to operate a marijuana facility at that location.

  The former bank is now for sale, and there won’t be any kind of marijuana business at the site, at least not for the next five years since the governing body passed an ordinance in March of this year that bans the sale, cultivation, manufacturing and testing of marijuana in the township.

  After five years, the township council would once again have 180 days to adopt an ordinance to ban cannabis businesses, but it would not apply to businesses already established, which would be allowed to continue to operate.

  Also, the settlement is not an admission of liability by any party in the lawsuit, and each side is responsible for its own attorneys’ fees, expert fees, and costs in connection with the matter.

  The township’s insurance carrier will pay $25,000 to the plaintiff’s counsel, Crate said.

  The next Township Council meeting will be on Tuesday June 22 at 7 p.m.