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FEBRUARY 2022 FREE
Towns define cannabis rules
Omicron wave washes over Mercer
By BiLL SANserViNO AND ReBeKAh SchrOeDer
New Jersey residents voted overwhelmingly to legalize marijuana more than a year ago, but they won’t be able to walk into a store and buy cannabis until later this year at the earliest. The N.J. Cannabis Regulatory Commission continues to refine the state’s rules governing the various aspects of the cannabis industry in the state. As that process continues, town officials continue to evaluate whether to allow cannabis businesses in their communities, while at the same time fielding proposals from various businesses who want to operate within their borders. About 67% of New Jersey voters approved the legalization of adult-use recreational cannabis in a referendum in the Nov. 2020 election. Last February, the state legislature and Gov. Phil Murphy passed a law legalizing recreational cannabis, establishing the Cannabis Regulatory Commission and creating six different licenses for cannabis businesses. The law also set a deadline of Aug. 21 for communities to pass ordinances regulating those cannabis businesses. Under the state law, if a town did not specifically prohibit each class of license by the deadline, those businesses See CANNABIS, Page 3
New variant results in record number of cases in January By BiLL SANserViNO
Members of the F3 Princeton fitness group assemble for a photo. Standing are Uday Jain (left), Spencer Reynolds, Duke Ritchie, Matt Hopkins, W. Jason Griffith, and Manish Bhansali. Seated are Deep Thapliyal, Elliott Gordon, Shane Daly, and Curtis Hoberman.
Group focuses on men’s physical and mental health By ANGeL OrTiZ
In 2011, a movement began in Charlotte, North Carolina where men could meet up and gather for free scheduled outdoor workouts. In the process, fellowships and friendships were formed as the men were able to not only improve their physical health, but their mental health as well by sharing their struggles with each other. This men’s fitness program became known as F3, which stands for the three Fs of the program’s name: Fitness, Fellowship and Faith. F3 began spreading from North Carolina, with many chapters being
created throughout the United States. The local chapter—F3 Princeton—is looking to attract more men from Mercer County and beyond to join up with them on the group’s overall mission to “plant, grow and serve small workout groups for men for the invigoration of male community leadership.” The roots for the local chapter were planted when Curtis Hoberman of West Windsor learned about F3 several years ago and thought it sounded like a fantastic program. Hoberman decided to check out the nearest F3 workout (which turned out to be at Valley Forge in Phoenixville, Penn-
sylvania) after seeing an article about the group titled, “Mending Men’s Ministry” in Christianity Today in May 2018. “I was also influenced by the two Billy Baker articles from the Boston Globe on male loneliness in middle age,” Hoberman says. “I realized it’s not just me, and I asked myself the question: ‘What can I do about this for myself, and for the men in my community?’” Hoberman made the 45-mile journey from West Windsor to workout at Valley Forge along with his friends Uday Jainand and Vijay Aluwalia. After joining the workouts that day, Hoberman was impressed. See F3, Page 6
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One of the biggest challenges yet in the COVID-19 pandemic occurred in January with the emergence of the Omicron variant of the virus. Omicron, which quickly displaced Delta as the dominant strain, was much more contagious than previous variants of COVID-19. While Omicron has been found in studies to cause less severe symptoms than previous strains—especially to got those who have been vaccinated—it infected significantly more people. The variant also evades immunity from vaccinations and past infections. “The numbers we’re seeing today blow anything we have seen since the start of the pandemic out of the water,” said Gov. Phil Murphy during his first briefing on the pandemic of 2022 on Jan. 3. Later in the month, the governor said that an “Omicron tsunami” was washing over the state, referring to the massive numbers of people testing positive for COVID. According to the U.S. CenSee OMICRON, Page 11