North Hills and Manorhaven say no to marijuana

Jessica Parks
North Hills Mayor Marvin Natiss (Photo by Amelia Camurati)

The villages of North Hills and Manorhaven have effectively banned marijuana as of last Wednesday’s board of trustees meeting in each village.

Manorhaven trustees voted to implement a six-month moratorium prohibiting the sale of marijuana for both recreational and medical use within the village limits.

North Hills’ law is meant to mirror federal regulations, such as those that outlaw the sale of marijuana as a controlled substance, said Mayor Marvin Natiss.

“I think [marijuana] is a problem,” he said. “I don’t know what people do when they get high.”

If they do so outside the law, “that’s their problem,” the mayor said.

Nowhere in North Hills’ law is marijuana itself mentioned. Instead, it says that no “good, substance, material or product in violation of any law, rule or regulation of the United States or the state of New York” may be created, sold, or consumed in the village.

The law is a reassurance that people in the village abide by the federal law, especially since the village is largely residential, leaving little room for a potential dispensary to move in, Nattis said.

He recently attended a seminar about the issue of marijuana legalization hosted by the Nassau County Village Officials Association, he said. Nattis left with concerns about real revenue as well as a lack of standards for measuring the effects of marijuana consumption. 

“From Colorado they’ve said it’s a cash business and therefore nobody knows what the revenue income is,” he said. “Nobody knows what the effects are and I don’t think it’s going to be controlled…I think it creates a problem when you legalize it.” 

The village board passed the law unanimously last Wednesday. No members of the community spoke at the public hearing, the mayor said.

In Manorhaven, the moratorium on marijuana sales was passed at a record-breaking village meeting of 21 minutes, Mayor Jim Avena said.

The sale of marijuana will be listed as a prohibited use under the village code and will require renewal every six months.

“Nobody wants that here,” Avena said.

The proposed law was first introduced in early March when it was thought that Gov. Andrew Cuomo was set to legalize marijuana, which did not occur in the recent budget passed on April 1.

Cuomo has vowed to get the Legislature to legalize marijuana for recreational use by June, according to the New York Post.

Manorhaven trustees also renewed a moratorium on the installation of cell nodes, small cell devices used to support the incoming 5G network, in the village for another six months. It was first implemented in October of last year.

The 5G network is expected to be faster and more cost-effective than its predecessor, 4G.

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