Nassau County’s first medical marijuana dispensary will be allowed to open in unincorporated Lake Success, despite North Hempstead officials’ initial thought that it wouldn’t fit zoning requirements.
In a statement last week, North Hempstead Town Supervisor Judi Bosworth said the town’s building department preliminarily approved Staten Island-based Bloomfield Industries’ application to open the facility as a medical office at 2001 Marcus Ave.
In late September, Bosworth and town Attorney Elizabeth Botwin said they thought the dispensary would be classified as a pharmacy, which is not a permitted use for that site.
But the building department determined otherwise.
“When Bloomfield submitted its actual plans to the building department, the department found that it fell within the description of a doctor’s office and not a retail store,” Bosworth said in the statement. “A medical office conforms with our zoning for that location.”
A Bloomfield spokesman said the dispensary will be open in early January, but the company has not set a specific opening date.
It will join other medical practices, including cardiology group Premier Cardiology Consultants and the Long Island IVF fertility clinic in the office complex, located just over a mile from Long Island Jewish Medical Center.
Another medical office complex and a division of Cohen Children’s Medical Center are adjacent to the property.
Bloomfield’s state health department application for the dispensary, to be called the Lake Success Patient Resource Center, says it will be open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday.
As it will be Nassau County’s first, Bosworth maintained last week that a dispensary closer to the county’s center would better serve residents.
But “this was not my call,” she said in the statement.
Marianna Wohlgemuth, former president of North New Hyde Park’s Lakeville Estates Civic Association, said she thinks the Lake Success location is “inconvenient for people who really need this medicine.”
“If it was me and I was in Freeport and the only location was for me to come up here, I would really be very upset,” Wohlgemuth said.
Bloomfield, one of five companies approved to open dispensaries under the 2014 Compassionate Care Act, a state law legalizing medical marijuana as of Jan. 5, chose Lake Success because it’s accessible to patients eligible to receive medical marijuana, the spokesman said.
Under the law, New York residents with diseases such as HIV/AIDS, cancer and multiple sclerosis can register with the state health department for a medical marijuana prescription that would not have to be covered by Medicare, Medicaid or private insurers.
The Bloomfield spokesman noted the Lake Success facility’s proximity to “major medical facilities” that treat those diseases.
The company also plans to open dispensaries in Manhattan, Syracuse, and Williamsville in Erie County. Its manufacturing center in Long Island City is now open and operational.
The proposal was met with some opposition in October from New Hyde Park residents who thought its close proximity to a school and Clinton G. Martin Park could make marijuana inadvertently accessible to children.
Michael O’Donald, another former North Lakeville Civic president, noted at a September town meeting that the closest school was about a mile away and the building is on a hill, somewhat isolated from the park.
The dispensary will have security guards and surveillance cameras, the Bloomfield spokesman said, and patients will have to show proof that they’re eligible to receive a marijuana prescription to get inside.
“New York has very strict guidelines in place for providing cannabis-based medicine to patients in need,” the spokesman said in an email. “… There will be no plant matter on site and there will be nothing like what we see on TV in places like Colorado or California.”
