Proposed cannabis dispensary at former Rt. 58 paint store site nixed by Riverhead Zoning Board

Riverhead Town has rejected a proposal to site a retail cannabis dispensary in a Route 58 commercial building just west of the traffic circle.

The holder of a New York State Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary license sought relief from the Riverhead Town Code requirement that dispensaries be located at least 1,000 feet from any school, library, or daycare, measured from property line to property line. 

The proposed site, a free-standing building at 1086 Old Country Road, next to the Roanoke Plaza Shopping Center, is located 735 feet of the property line of Riverhead High School. 

The Riverhead Zoning Board of Appeals has authority to grant variances from the town’s zoning rules, such as minimum distances and property sizes, when certain criteria are met.

The ZBA held a public hearing April 24 on the variance application by the holder of the conditional dispensary license, Brian Stark Enterprises LLC. [Editor’s note: Brian Stark is not the same person nor any relation to the local business owner with the same name.]

The applicant’s attorney, Martha Reichert of the Twomey Latham law firm in Riverhead, argued at the hearing that the dispensary would not impact the character of the community or the environment. 

There is “no visual or physical connection between the school property and the applicant’s property,” Reichert told ZBA members.  She noted that between the two properties, there is a four lane highway (Route 58), and a large shopping center. The school property itself, she said, is fenced off. 

Walking on public property from the school to the site — along Harrison Avenue and Route 58 — would be a nearly three-quarters-of-a-mile walk, she said.

But ZBA members were unmoved, citing the long-standing practice of high school students cutting leaving the school grounds from the athletic field to access  Route 58, shops and restaurants whose properties back up to the school’s field. Students often go to Route 58 shops during their lunch breaks and after school.

At Thursday’s meeting, the ZBA issued its decision on the application. Vice Chairperson Ralph Gazillo read the board’s determination into the record.

“The board has carefully reviewed and considered all the testimony and evidence submitted in connection with the application, as well as the findings set forth in the …decision. After this careful review, the Board hereby determines that the benefit of granting the area variance request is substantially outweighed by the detriment of granting the area variance request to the health, safety and welfare of the community, and hereby denies the application… in its entirety,” Gazillo read.

Reichert could not be reached today for comment on the ZBA’S decision.

This is the second variance application by a conditional cannabis dispensary license holder denied by the ZBA. 

In February, the ZBA denied a request for a variance from the 1,000-foot setback from residential uses made by a different applicant for a site on Ostrander Avenue. The site in that case was also outside a designated commercial corridor. That applicant, Tink & E. Co., filed a lawsuit in March seeking to have the ZBA decision set aside by the State Supreme Court, Suffolk County. That lawsuit remains pending. 

The court in that case recently added the Office of Cannabis Management as a necessary party defendant. It also added Brian Stark Enterprises and Moutafis Motors, owner of the property at 840 Old Country Road (on the corner of Route 58 and Ostrander Avenue) where another dispensary is proposed, as intervenor defendants. The Riverhead Planning Department has determined that the Moutafis site meets the town code’s requirements. The Planning Board held a public hearing on that application June 5. 

State regulations require a minimum distance between dispensaries of 1,000 feet. The Moutafis site is within 1,000 feet of the Tink & E. Co. site. Tink & E. Co. argues that the Office of Cannabis Management “conferred proximity protection status” to the Tink & E. Co. site, which it says it still retains while the lawsuit is pending. 

TInk & E. Co.’s lawyers wrote to the Office of Cannabis Management in March 2024 seeking an advisory opinion that Riverhead Town’s then-proposed cannabis zoning rules are “unreasonably impracticable and preempted as a matter of state law.”