Smoke if you were given ’em — simply no longer right here.
One Lengthy Island the city handed a ban on smoking pot in public — a transfer applauded through citizens fed-up with the ever present scent of marijuana who mentioned “there’s a time and position” for the leisure drug.
The town of Glen Cove is it appears the primary municipality within the state to enact a ban since New York made weed criminal, with the Town Council approving the prohibition at a contentious assembly Tuesday evening.
“You’ll smoke marijuana in your home, on your backyard, on your buddy’s backyard — we’re banning it from public puts like our seashores, our stadium, our parks, puts we deliver our kids,” town Mayor Pamela Panzenbeck mentioned, in line with video of the assembly.
Beneath the brand new regulation, anyone stuck smoking pot in public areas inside of town limits outdoor in their houses, together with whilst strolling down sidewalks, might be slapped with fines of as much as $100 for his or her first offense and $250 for any time after.
Town officers, who prior to now voted to opt-out of permitting hashish gross sales in 2021 and later enacted a zoning regulation in 2023 that considerably limited the place new smoke retail outlets may open inside of Glen Cove, mentioned the passage comes according to court cases about what one native known as “the grim stench” lingering all the way through the city.
“There’s a time and a spot for grownup elements — and our parks, streets, playgrounds and public areas aren’t where for marijuana use,” resident Bruce Kennedy advised the board, likening the ban to restrictions on alcohol intake.
However some citizens known as the regulation unlawful and mentioned it used to be a determined “cash snatch” that objectives law-abiding younger individuals who don’t personal houses and aren’t allowed to smoke of their flats, which they mentioned would drive them to both spoil the regulation or their rent with the intention to toke up.
The regulation makes no adjustments to the place smoking tobacco is allowed — which criminal hashish mavens mentioned may violate state laws that lumps marijuana in with different criminal varieties of smoking.
Different native governments all the way through Lengthy Island and the state have issued restrictions round smoking hashish, on the other hand, Glen Cove’s ban appears to be the primary and best in New York that particularly restricts pot use in public whilst leaving native tobacco restrictions untouched.
The state’s Place of business of Hashish Control mentioned the Blank Indoor Air Act, which covers each marijuana and tobacco in public, supplies statewide requirements for the place smoking is and isn’t approved — however famous that native governments would possibly undertake further smoking restrictions in public areas.
However criminal mavens mentioned critics may have a case to sue over the prohibition.
“Glen Cove’s overall ban at the public use of hashish merchandise, however no longer tobacco, is overly huge and in all probability a contravention of New York State regulation,” legal professional Jeffrey Buss, who practices within the hashish business, advised The Put up.
Buss identified that the brand new regulation carves no exceptions for scientific marijuana and that town’s definition of public areas comprises non-public belongings adjacent public land and outside eating places.
“State regulation recently prohibits public use in parks, playgrounds and seashores, however particularly excludes non-public belongings and designated smoking spaces. As written, the native regulation is matter to problem,” Buss defined.
