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The Lebanon Zoning Hearing Board on Wednesday denied a variance request that would have permitted a downtown Lebanon medical marijuana dispensary to move its operations next door, and slightly closer to an existing daycare center.
The request was refused by a 2-2 deadlock vote, with one hearing board member not voting due to a recusal. (Zoning board member Craig Gates previously recused himself from voting on the request due to business ties with the owner of the property being targeted for the new location, according to city zoning officer Clyde Patches. He attended but did not participate in Wednesday’s hearing.)
The deadlock vote means the proposal was denied since a majority did not approve it, Patches said.
LebTown previously reported that the dispensary, at 815 Cumberland St., is an outlet of international cannabis distributor Curaleaf, which has dispensaries throughout the U.S. and Europe.
The dispensary at 815 Cumberland Street has sold medical marijuana to qualified persons since 2019, when it opened as Herbology, but had wanted to move next door to a vacant bank building at 801 Cumberland St., on the northwest corner of 8th and Cumberland streets. The 801 Cumberland St. property, owned by New Vision Holdings LLC, as well as the existing property are both in the city’s central business district.
The city’s zoning ordinance allows medical marijuana dispensaries as long as they are 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.”
At issue, however, was the actual distance from that location. At a Dec. 17 zoning hearing, the board asked Aaron Camara, president of New Vision Holdings, and Curaleaf manager Kaleb Morrissey to “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 daycare is located in the YMCA.
Attorney Elizabeth G. Vanasse presented new evidence and asked for a “de minimis dimensional variance of about 7.3% going from the 927 feet to your ordinance’s standard of 1,000 feet.”
Vanasse told the board their initial application said they had measured the building to be about 840 feet from the YMCA, but after looking at the “traversable distance,” it’s actually over 1,000 feet. “So in our opinion, we’re here out of an abundance of caution asking for this de minimis variance.”
She noted that the new survey revealed data that should allow the variance to be granted.
“So based on the survey we received, if we’re going by the photo as the crow flies, it’s about 927 feet between these two properties,” Vanasse said.
At the prior meeting and again on Wednesday, Vanasse emphasized that a fair amount of testimony at the last hearing is not specific on how to measure distances.
Attorney Derek Dissinger, representing New Vision and also Vanesse’s colleague, argued to the board at the December hearing 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.”
“The ordinance doesn’t specify how to measure these two distances,” said Vanasse.
Patches did not comment at the hearing, nor did Camara, who sat with Vanasse at the witness table, or Morrissey, who was in the audience. A few area residents attended the hearing, and one of them spoke out against the proposed variance.
Sharon Zook, representing the Lebanon Valley Council on the Arts, asked the board to deny the request. The council’s headquarters are at 770 Cumberland St.
“Keeping with the whole spirit of the ordinance, the ordinance is put into effect to protect those who are involved in the education of the children, and we do quite a few children’s programs in our building, which is right across the street,” Zook said. “I mean, you can see it right out the windows. And we hear what the parents have to say. And those who are trying to raise children in this city, and we would ask that the city hold to the ordinances, so that the downtown area would be a place where we can continue doing our kids programs and having an environment that’s conducive to what schools, daycares, and secondary schools are doing in this city.”
The hearing board went into executive session for about 10 minutes to discuss the request. When the board reconvened, members Wayne Tarvin and Amanda Forteza voted to deny the variance, while Ed Lynch and Robert Hoffman supported it.
Following the vote, board solicitor Keith Kilgore said the information provided showed a difference in excess of 200 feet as the basis for the board denying the variance.
“It (the distance) is over 200 feet, so therefore we felt they were not meeting the letter of the law,” said Kilgore.
Vanasse asked how that figure was determined. Kilgore responded that “the board is measuring it from the closest point of the YMCA parcel to the rear of the subject property.”
Patches told LebTown after the hearing that he was told by the board that the distance used in the board’s decision was 742 feet, which is 268 feet below the existing city zoning ordinance required setback of 1,000 feet.
“According to the surveyor’s measurement, it was only 742 between the two properties,” Patches said. “The one that the city holds to is the fact that it should be the distance between the two properties from point A to point B, which is the 742.”
Both Camara and Vanasse declined comment to LebTown following the vote.
Other board actions
In other business, the zoning board unanimously voted to:
- Allow a property owned by Melvin Allgier at 214 Mifflin St. to be rezoned from a single dwelling to a two-family unit.
- Uphold a city zoning officer finding against Joseph Gibble for a property he owns at 374 N. Gannon St. The city charged Gibble for operating a multi-family dwelling instead of a single-family unit.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article stated that the recusal of one board member was not mentioned publicly during Wednesday’s meeting. However, it was mentioned during a December meeting of the board. LebTown sincerely regrets the omission.
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