Observant Riversiders may have noticed last week when the Star Buds dispensary, near the intersection of Longcommon Road and Harlem Avenue, quietly changed its hours of operation to reflect its new opening hour of 8 a.m.
The Riverside village board March 21 passed an ordinance to amend the village’s zoning code, allowing adult-use cannabis dispensaries to open as early as 8 a.m. The move followed an informal request to open earlier from Star Buds, the village’s only cannabis retailer, whose owners said, but did not confirm, it loses about $2,000 to $3,000 per day by opening at 9 a.m. rather than 8 a.m.
The board’s approval came three weeks after the village’s planning and zoning commission unanimously rejected the bid due to a lack of financial information provided by Star Buds and concerns over increased traffic in the area, a decision village officials disagreed with at the board meeting.
“With tremendous respect to the commission that looked at this, it does feel a bit arbitrary in nature just to decide that this particular business can’t open until that time,” Trustee Megan Claucherty said during discussion.
In an uncommon move, Village President Douglas Pollock opened discussion on the ordinance by allowing public comment. For most agenda items at village board meetings, public comment is saved until after any discussion from the board.
One public commenter, who said she and her family live two doors down from the dispensary on Berkeley Road, spoke out against allowing the store to open earlier. She cited issues facing the neighborhood, such as increased traffic, the odor of marijuana, incidents like public urination occurring near the store, and lighting from the store shining into nearby homes. She pointed out most other dispensaries in the area have more restrictive hours than Star Buds, which closes at 10 p.m.
The commenter’s school-age daughter, who went up to the podium with her and spoke just before her, said the increased traffic in the area could make it unsafe for children walking or biking to school in the morning.
“We understand that there needs to be a balance of what a business needs to be successful,” the commenter said. “This business is also in a community, and it is up against a community with a lot of children, and we think it is unreasonable for this business to open any earlier than 9 o’clock.”
One other public commenter spoke in the dispensary’s defense, pointing out that other businesses in Riverside open as early as 7:30 a.m. He said it was “unfair” for the village to restrict Star Buds’ operating hours.
“What you’re doing is, basically, you’re dictating how a business operates,” he said. “There might be a bias against this place because it is a cannabis place, and for years, everybody thought cannabis was bad, but now it’s legal.”
Before opening discussion to the village board, Pollock responded directly to the public comments to address some of the issues that were brought up.
Village staff has asked the dispensary’s owners to provide the on-site manager’s contact information to neighbors, “So that when there’s an incident happening, they can immediately call the manager, and the manager can walk out the door and put a stop to it,” he said.
Assistant Village Manager Ashley Monroe confirmed at the meeting that the owners had added protection earlier that week to the lighting that had been reaching into nearby homes.
“Some of the issues that were brought up are of great concern to me and to, I’m sure, all of us. We had gotten inquiries about the lighting; we’d gotten inquiries about the smell of marijuana in the neighborhood,” Pollock said. “Those are issues not related at all to the hours of operation, but they are issues of great concern, to not only the village but to the Star Buds owners. They could risk losing their license if they have repeated violations of that nature.”
During discussion, Trustee Jill Mateo asked for a summary of “enforcement actions” from the police to ensure Star Buds customers are behaving appropriately.
“I will tell you that the patrol, that is an additional assignment that Director [of Public Safety Matthew] Buckley tasked with officers working on the various shifts to make sure that they’re going by the dispensary,” village Manager Jessica Frances said in response. “Now, obviously, you know, that’s a proactive approach, and they’re not going to catch individuals all of the time, and just we hope that the presence becomes a deterrent for people to not behave badly.”
She added that the Star Buds owners have said they “will not tolerate” behavior such as public urination and will ban customers who behave badly.
Trustee Aberdeen Marsh-Ozga suggested increasing police patrols in town around 8 a.m. when students walk to school, but Frances said the “challenge with that” is that Riverside’s police are already at the schools in the morning, leaving few officers available to patrol.
“I have kids, they go to school, right? That’s an issue that is top of mind. I do think traffic mitigation is a separate issue here,” Claucherty said of Marsh-Ozga’s suggestion. “I don’t want to dice it too close, but most of the kids have already made their way to school by the time [Star Buds is] proposing to open.”
“Our planning and zoning commission does a tremendous job. I have great respect for them, but I have to be honest and say, I think they looked at this from the wrong perspective,” Pollock said. “I would say that the analysis should begin with, ‘What is unique about this particular business that we’re going to restrict their hours differently from everyone else or almost everyone else?’ Personally, I don’t see a difference. I don’t see why, if there was a bakery there, or a hair salon, or whatever else, they could open at 7 a.m., and the impacts on the neighbors would be the same.”
Pollock added that the village might restrict a business’s operating hours if it would otherwise create “a unique traffic level” that other businesses are not creating.
“I didn’t see any evidence of that, and intuition tells me that there is no difference,” he said.
Following discussion, the board unanimously agreed to allow Star Buds to open at 8 a.m. by passing the ordinance, which also included changes to ambiguous wording made by the planning and zoning commission.
