A downtown Lebanon medical marijuana dispensary is asking the city’s zoning hearing board to allow a move to an adjacent property that would put it closer to a child daycare center than the zoning ordinance normally allows.
The local dispensary, currently at 815 Cumberland St., is an outlet of international cannabis distributor Curaleaf, which has dispensaries throughout the U.S. and in Europe.
Curaleaf has dispensed medical marijuana to qualified persons at 815 Cumberland since 2019, but wants to move next door to a vacant bank building at 801 Cumberland St., on the northwest corner of 8th & Cumberland streets.
801 Cumberland, owned by New Vision Holdings LLC, is in the “central business district.” The city’s zoning ordinance allows a medical marijuana dispensary at that location as long as it is at least “1,000 feet from the property line of a primary or secondary school or child day care center.” The ordinance refers to the minimum required distance as a “setback.”
The Lebanon Valley Family YMCA operates a child daycare center at 152 N. 8th St., which is less than 1,000 feet straight-line distance from the property line of the proposed new dispensary location.
New Vision Holdings, as the owner of 801 Cumberland, has applied to the board for a “dimensional variance,” which would allow Curaleaf to dispense marijuana less than 1,000 feet from the daycare. A variance allows a property to be used in a manner inconsistent with zoning requirements if certain conditions are met.
In a November letter to the zoning hearing board, Aaron Camara, New Vision Holdings’ president, conceded that the proposed new location would be less than 1,000 feet from the Y’s daycare center, but asked for a “dimensional variance,” pointing out that “the Quittapahilla Creek runs between both dispensary locations and the daycare, creating a physical, impenetrable barrier that requires bridge crossing.”
Camara argued in his letter that “the shortest traversable distance for a pedestrian or car when considering the impassable barrier created by the creek is approximately 1,030 feet, which exceeds the 1,000 foot requirement. This ensures that the intent of the setback is maintained with this relocation. The straight-line measurement understates the actual functional separation.”
To justify a variance, an owner must show that unique physical conditions create an unnecessary hardship by making it impossible to use the property in strict conformity with the zoning ordinance, and that the hardship is not self-created. A variance cannot alter the essential character of the neighborhood and must be the minimum relief necessary.
How to measure? Where from? Hearing adjourned, decision postponed
The zoning board held a public hearing on New Visions Holdings’ variance application on Dec. 17. Board chairman Robert Hoffman noted that the city’s planning commission had recommended denying the requested variance.
Attorney Derek Dissinger, representing New Visions, argued to the board that the city’s zoning ordinance is ambiguous because it does not specify how the required 1,000 foot setback should be measured, straight-line or by another method, nor what points on each property were to be used in taking a measurement.
Camara testified that the straight-line distance to the daycare from the front property line of 801 Cumberland is about 980 feet. City zoning officer Clyde Patches disagreed, saying that it is only 745 feet. Board members asked whether the the measuring point for a dispensary at 801 Cumberland should be the front entrance, the old bank’s drive-thru entrance on the building’s west side, or the parking lot and rear entrance on the building’s north side.
Patches told the board that if a variance would be granted, he would want to see conditions barring lines and loitering outside the building, and limits on on-street parking, all of which Dissinger said were acceptable.
After the testimony of Camara and Curaleaf manager Kaleb Morrissey concluded, the board conferred privately. Upon returning to the public session, the board said it would postpone a decision and ordered New Visions Holdings to obtain a survey to accurately measure straight-line distances from various points on 801 Cumberland to various points on the daycare property at 152 N. 8th St.
The Dec. 17 hearing was adjourned until 4 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 21. That public hearing will be held at the Lebanon City Hall meeting room, 735 Cumberland St., 1st floor, in downtown Lebanon.
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