Smoke when you obtained ’em — simply not right here.
One Lengthy Island city handed a ban on smoking pot in public — a transfer applauded by residents fed-up with the ever-present scent of marijuana who mentioned “there’s a time and place” for the leisure drug.
Town of Glen Cove is outwardly the primary municipality within the state to enact a ban since New York made weed authorized, with the Metropolis Council approving the prohibition at a contentious assembly Tuesday night time.
“You’ll be able to smoke marijuana in your own home, in your yard, in your pal’s yard — we’re banning it from public locations like our seashores, our stadium, our parks, locations we deliver our kids,” metropolis Mayor Pamela Panzenbeck mentioned, in accordance with video of the assembly.
Beneath the brand new regulation, anyone caught smoking pot in public areas inside metropolis limits outdoors of their houses, together with whereas strolling down sidewalks, will likely be slapped with fines of as much as $100 for his or her first offense and $250 for any time after.
Metropolis officers, who beforehand voted to opt-out of permitting hashish gross sales in 2021 and later enacted a zoning regulation in 2023 that considerably restricted the place new smoke outlets might open inside Glen Cove, mentioned the passage is available in response to complaints about what one native referred to as “the terrible stench” lingering all through city.
“There’s a time and a spot for grownup substances — and our parks, streets, playgrounds and public areas aren’t the place for marijuana use,” resident Bruce Kennedy advised the board, likening the ban to restrictions on alcohol consumption.
However some residents referred to as the regulation unlawful and mentioned it was a determined “cash seize” that targets law-abiding younger individuals who don’t personal houses and aren’t allowed to smoke of their residences, which they mentioned would drive them to both break the regulation or their lease with the intention to toke up.
The regulation makes no modifications to the place smoking tobacco is permitted — which authorized hashish consultants mentioned would possibly violate state rules that lumps marijuana in with different authorized types of smoking.
Different native governments all through Lengthy Island and the state have issued restrictions round smoking hashish, nonetheless, Glen Cove’s ban appears to be the primary and solely in New York that particularly restricts pot use in public whereas leaving native tobacco restrictions untouched.
The state’s Workplace of Hashish Administration mentioned the Clear Indoor Air Act, which covers each marijuana and tobacco in public, supplies statewide requirements for the place smoking is and isn’t permitted — however famous that native governments might undertake extra smoking restrictions in public areas.
However authorized consultants mentioned critics might need a case to sue over the prohibition.
“Glen Cove’s whole ban on the general public use of hashish merchandise, however not tobacco, is overly broad and almost certainly a violation of New York State regulation,” lawyer Jeffrey Buss, who practices within the hashish business, advised The Put up.
Buss identified that the brand new regulation carves no exceptions for medical marijuana and that town’s definition of public areas contains non-public property adjoining public land and out of doors eating places.
“State regulation at the moment prohibits public use in parks, playgrounds and seashores, however particularly excludes non-public property and designated smoking areas. As written, the native regulation is topic to problem,” Buss defined.
