TOMS RIVER, NJ – Democrat candidate for mayor Ben Giovine said if he is elected mayor of Toms River in November, he will push to overturn a 2021 ban on the sale of legal marijuana in Toms River. The Toms River Township Council voted against allowing weed businesses to operate within the town.
Giovine said the township would benefit from the sale of legal marijuana in the community, pumping the township coffers with more money.
Giovine, a progressive ally of New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, who works for ultra-progressive Congressman Andy Kim said he will open the gates to retail cannabis sales township-wide.
Giovine tied that comment into another where he said he would create a plan to fill the many vacant storefronts in the township’s strip malls.
Giovine pointed to a referendum vote where 60% of people voted in favor of legalizing marijuana in New Jersey, however, the majority of Toms River residents have told the town council they do not want dispensaries in their neighborhoods.
“In 2020, an overwhelming majority voted to approve recreational cannabis. With such a result, I am confused on why the council overwhelmingly took a stance to ban operations in Toms River,” Giovine said. “As Mayor, I’d hope the Council would be open to speaking and hearing from other towns that have seen enormous windfalls from dispensary operations. We are a pro-business community and I disagree with any broad prohibitions on legal businesses to open up in town.“
That stance puts him at odds with the Toms River Police Department and Chief of Police Mitch Little who has railed Governor Murphy’s legalization of marijuana.
The legalization of marijuana has made policing difficult for the officers who serve the community.
“Governor Phillip Murphy signed three laws which decriminalized marijuana and set out orders to have previous convictions and/or pending cases dismissed. This was expected as a majority of New Jersey residents voted to have marijuana legalized in the state,” Chief Little said in a statement after police were handcuffed by the new laws. “What was not expected was the denial of parental access to information regarding their child’s marijuana or alcohol use, restrictions of investigations based on odor, and the criminal liability for officers deemed to be violating this law.”
The New Jersey legislators eventually untied the hands of police, allowing them only to notify the parents if they catch children using marijuana.
“Unlike the state of New Jersey, we believe parents deserve and need to know when their children are in dangerous situations,” he said.
Little had called New Jersey’s method of legalizing marijuana, “a detriment to the safety of our children”,