Slow roll by LI towns on pot sites is OK

There’s a big difference between legalizing an intoxicant and creating a situation where its use is thoroughly normalized, heavily promoted and omnipresent. 

With marijuana, there’s nothing wrong with going slowly. It makes sense to take some time to see how legalization will affect Long Island and its residents — and where businesses selling and serving it can best be placed to accommodate the compromise between individual liberties and community sensibilities.

The state is preparing to begin legal recreational sales of cannabis early next year, with 20 of the first round of 150 licenses statewide allocated for the Island. But just four Long Island towns have opted to allow sales, a necessity for dispensaries to open. Three of the towns that have opted in have or are about to set rules on where the businesses can go that have potential pot entrepreneurs frustrated:

• In Brookhaven, sales are already banned within 500 feet of houses and 1,000 feet of schools, houses of worship, hospitals, libraries, parks, playgrounds, gyms, dance studios and “common gathering places.”
• In Babylon, officials expect to approve an ordinance allowing dispensaries and consumption sites in industrially zoned areas and ban them within 200 feet of religious properties and 500 feet of schools, libraries, parks, playgrounds, child care centers, youth organizations, dance studios, batting cages, gymnasiums or other venues “where minors congregate.”    
• In Riverhead, proposed rules say sellers can go only in the town’s various business centers and districts, rural corridors, and the Peconic River Community. And they can’t be within 1,000 feet of schools, libraries or day care facilities, or 500 feet of town beaches, playgrounds, community centers or children's’ amusement centers. 
• In Southampton, no rules are yet proposed. Supervisor Jay Schneiderman says the town will keep the businesses away from places where children congregate, and will be conscious of traffic and safety, but he sounds open to allowing flexibility on potential locations in regulations the town board will approve.

It’s understandable that potential cannabis entrepreneurs, and consumers, would find these restrictions extreme. Each town has areas where bars serving oceans of liquor successfully coexist with dance studios and the like, and restaurants with kids’ menus that also serve beer, wine and cocktails.

But considering that nine Long Island towns and two cities chose to allow no sales at all, these four are highly accommodating. In the context of such a huge societal change, going slowly can’t hurt.

We no longer want to treat marijuana use and sales as a crime. We do want to tax those sales.

But that doesn’t mean communities want to convince more young people to get high, or convince those who already use cannabis to do so more often.