Wednesday, October 2, 2024 | St. Lawrence County, NY
BY ADAM ATKINSON North Country This Week POTSDAM — The Potsdam village board of trustees will host a public input session on Monday, Nov. 1 at 5:30 p.m. on allowing licensed cannabis retail …
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BY ADAM ATKINSON
North Country This Week
POTSDAM — The Potsdam village board of trustees will host a public input session on Monday, Nov. 1 at 5:30 p.m. on allowing licensed cannabis retail businesses and/or on-site consumption locations in the village.
The village, like many municipalities, has until the end of the year to decide if it will allow entrepreneurs to open pot shops in the village limits, thereby generating sales tax revenue from pot sales in the village for the county and the state under the auspices of the state’s new Marijuana Regulation & Taxation Act (MRTA).
Former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who resigned in disgrace this past summer due to sexual harassment allegations, signed the MRTA on March 31, 2021 legalizing adult-use cannabis (also known as marijuana, or recreational marijuana) in New York State. The law seeks to control, regulate and tax the flow of commerce generated by the sale of marijuana within the state, an economy which traditionally fell outside the state’s ability to tax when adult-use marijuana was considered illegal.
The state estimates that tax collections from the adult-use cannabis program are projected to reach $350 million annually. Additionally the state is counting on bringing thousands of jobs in marijuana sales, traditionally “under the table” when pot was considered an illegal drug, onto the books which would also generate new income taxes.
Towns and villages around the state, under mandate of the MRTA, are mulling the decision to opt in or opt out of allowing dispensaries selling marijuana inside their jurisdictions. Decisions to allow shops could create scenarios where one municipality which does not allow sales neighbors a municipality which does, causing residents of the former to travel to the latter to spend their money and generate sales tax income.
Cannabis dispensaries in approved municipal jurisdictions are not scheduled to open until the end of 2022 or early 2023. However, dispensaries are currently open at several locations on Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe lands.
