The interior of Strain Stars, operating in Riverhead since 2024; this business won’t be affected by the potential moratorium. (Credit: courtesy photo)
On Tuesday, Aug. 5, the Riverhead Town Board voted unanimously to hold a public hearing to discuss a one year moratorium on new cannabis businesses.
The Town Board brought the vote in response to a recent judgment by the Suffolk County Supreme Court that ruled some of Riverhead’s zoning for cannabis dispensaries is invalid. The ruling stated that no variance was required for Tink & E Co. to open a dispensary at 1201 Ostrander Ave. in Riverhead. It also stated that another proposed dispensary, Moutafis Motors, does not have “proximity protection” and cannot open at its proposed location at 840 Old Country Road, since it is within 300 feet of an approved location.
According to the town attorney Erik Howard, the town plans to appeal the county decision, since the town feels it undermined the state cannabis law that gives towns that opt in the ability to draft time, place and manner legislation relating to cannabis uses.
“We think that the substantial community outreach that we did and the zoning that we came up with was put together in the right way,” said Mr. Howard. “So the feeling now is that if the Town Board has been aware that whatever they come up with in terms of zoning would be superseded by regulations subsequently adopted by the cannabis control board, they probably wouldn’t have opted in in the first place.”
A one-year moratorium could give the town time to address community concerns and discover what aspects of cannabis zoning rules they are able to control.
“[The ruling] really raises the question of do we need to reconvene the community engagement group that came out to help draft the legislation in the first place and sort of revisit how we want to exercise whatever time, place and manner abilities we actually do have,” said Mr. Howard. “The moratorium will also allow the appeal to go forward and potentially get a sense of the direction of whether the decision that was issued earlier this week would be upheld or not.”
Tink & E Co., Stark Enterprises and the new Planet Nugg dispensary in Aquebogue will all be affected by the potential moratorium. While these businesses have been approved by the office of cannabis management, they have yet to gain their building permits from Riverhead Town.
“In terms of what we’re allowed to do, the court is explicit. We can move forward with going ahead with the process through the building department,” Andrew Schriever, the attorney representing Tink & E Co., said of the ruling. “I think our client felt it pretty important that the court recognized that there’s no legal basis to treat cannabis businesses differently.”
Martha Riechert of Twomey, Latham, Shea, Kelley, Dubin & Quartararo LLC, the law firm representing Stark Enterprises, welcomed the court’s decision. Stark Enterprises is trying to open a dispensary at 1086 Old Country Road. While the recent ruling does not render a judgment on the school distance requirements, the issue most affecting her client, Ms. Reichert stated that she was confident the judge would reach a similar conclusion.
“We’re very encouraged and happy about the court’s decision. It will need to be applied to the Stark Article 78 against the town of Riverhead on the school distances, but given that it’s the same legal principles, again, we feel very encouraged that we’re going to also see the 1,000-foot school distance be preempted, and that means that the 500-foot distance applies, and if that’s the case, then we never needed a variance.”
Two dispensaries are already open in Riverhead: Strain Stars at 1871 Old Country Road in Riverhead and Beleaf at 4462 Middle Country Road in Calverton. Both businesses have been open since late 2024.
“Business is going well. It’s been improving month after month. Overall, it’s going great. Our clientele is great, the feedback we get is phenomenal. It’s definitely working, definitely busy, and it’s steadily getting busier,” said Mike Reda, owner of Beleaf.
Yuvraj Singh, one of the owners of Strain Stars, also said they have seen success at their location. According to his numbers they are now making around $2 million a month.
“Business has been great … It’s been right around eight months, and we’ve been seeing this steady growth with customers, with sales. Everything has been great, to be honest, and more and more people keep learning about it, about cannabis out there,” said Mr. Singh. “Mondays through Wednesdays, we see about 400 customers, and at the end of the week, coming into the weekend, it’s about 700, 800 customers per day.”
Mr. Howard said the taxes generated by the dispensaries are currently going into the general budget, but he intends to suggest using a portion of that money for the ongoing litigation.
As previously reported, each cannabis sale incurs a 13% tax. This is broken down between local and state governments. The state portion of the tax is 9%. Of the remaining 4%, 25% goes to the county and 75% goes to the town. Unlike the state revenue, there are no restrictions on how this revenue can be spent.
“A certain amount of revenue we’ve received so far is being put into the [2026] budget. I mean, me personally, as an attorney, I’m going to be recommending that a certain percentage of it be earmarked for events of these types of cannabis cases,” Mr. Howard said. “I think that until we have greater clarity as to the extent of our time, place, and manner authority, we at least recommend a certain percentage be set aside to defend these cases.”
