FARMING

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Doyle, along with resident Len Austin, maintained that the Eastern Tiger representatives can “build a warehouse somewhere else,” including by using old factory buildings, and “not use farmers’ ground that they use to grow crops in the soil outside” and “not cut down more trees.”

“I am born and raised around these trees,” Austin declared. “I am from the woods and have been in Browns Mills all my life. What are you going to do to this town? We are not a Willingboro. We are not a Medford. We are not a Marlton. We are a rural town in the woods. You should build on something already existing, that is not in use.”

When Democratic Council President Donovan Gardner, who has previously strongly supported bringing the cannabis industry to Pemberton and has even claimed that cannabis being deemed federally illegal is rooted in racism, came to the defense of the Eastern Tiger representatives by stating that “I don’t remember seeing old factories in town we could possibly use,” Austin retorted, “BCC is across the street,” or the former, abandoned campus of Burlington County College, or what in its final years was called Rowan College at Burlington County (RCBC), with (RCBC) since having been relocated to Mount Laurel, where McWilliams made a point on several occasions to say that is where he resides.

McWilliams faced questions throughout the proceedings as to why he isn’t proposing that Eastern Tiger move to Mount Laurel, with one resident maintaining it is because the town “doesn’t want it there.”

Some of the most impassioned opposition to the proposal of the night, however, came from local farmer Valerie Roohr, with her and her husband maintaining farmland in both Pemberton and neighboring Southampton townships, with their farmland on North Pemberton Road apparently abutting the farmland for the prospective cannabis cultivator.

“You see these haybales over here?” she asked of the Eastern Tiger representatives, while pointing to one of their renderings. “That’s mine! I own this!”

Roohr, who maintained the company’s representatives prepared a presentation that was “insulting” not only to her husband, but “us farmers,” in pointing to the plan for planting evergreens, asked what “construction of a gazillion trees” as high as 40 feet tall are “going to do my farm.”

“You are going to shade my property and ruin my crop!” Roohr declared. “I have a problem with that!”

Roohr also lambasted Eastern Tiger’s representatives for, as she put it, “thinking we are a bunch of hillbillies,” maintaining that true farmers “grow things people can eat” and that they “feed people” as well as “feed our country.”

“Does it look like a fake farm?” she asked. “Because that is what that is – a fake farm!”

Roohr also appeared to question DiCapite’s motives behind choosing to name the cannabis cultivation business “Eastern Tiger,” with the CEO having made a point in the beginning of his presentation to explain that the name is derived from the eastern tiger salamander (also incorporated into his logo), which he claimed is an “endangered salamander that is native to New Jersey.”

“Put a big marijuana plant there (in your logo) and show us what you really are, and what you really stand for!” she declared. “You are falsifying what you are and then acting like you are farming!”

DiCapite, in explaining the reasoning behind the name of his company, stated that while “there are no salamanders in the waters of Pemberton, there are plenty of wildlife people in the community to protect.”

“We believe it is our responsibility to create an operation that respects and uplifts the community around us,” he declared.

Roohr, however, issued a stark warning, asserting, “If you want to destroy Pemberton Township, you are going the right way.”

“You are not making Pemberton a better place by doing what you are doing,” Roohr declared. “You are insulting every farmer! And the soil is great, and you are not using it!”

DiCapite and McWilliams, throughout their March 15 presentation to Pemberton council, pointed out that the firm would be subject to a “two percent revenue obligation on all sales.”

“We are expecting in the first year of our operations, when we are just getting up and running, and still working out all the kinks, that we will be generating $300,000, and nearly double to $540,000 in year two,” McWilliams contended.

Both men also contended that Eastern Tiger and its representatives do “a lot of charity work” and are looking for local organizations to make contributions to and contended that they have already given a donation to the Good Will Fire Company, for instance. It was added that the firm would pursue using local contractors in constructing their facilities.

“We want to help those in need, and we want to do good by doing good with you and the community,” McWilliams declared. “We have commitments to not only just tax dollars, but commitments to donate back.”

But that did little to quell concerns about water and electrical demands, as well as potential for a foul odor emanating from any facility and security risks.

While maintaining that the campus is designed to look aesthetically pleasing, DiCapite, who recognized “security is a huge concern,” acknowledged the facility “will be surrounded by high security fencing” with “trigger alarms.” It’s a “lockdown facility,” he contended, that will not only have fencing, but two security gates that one will have to passthrough before being allowed entry to the barn.

The CEO announced plans to hire a security guard company that is active 365 days of the year and maintained “we will have a dedicated 24/7 security team on site,” in addition to “remote guards.” The cultivation area, he claimed, “will have multiple levels” of security access points to the point that “you can’t get in any room without using a keypad.” Additionally, he said the company is “planning to work with the local police department for any advice and inspections” as well as to “work with them to see what the best plan is” in securing the complex.

“We will be using seed to sale software to monitor product inventory,” DiCapite added. “Everything is tested, everything is tracked, and anything that doesn’t pass testing gets destroyed. Nothing leaves those walls unless it is going directly to a retailer.” (Later, after being queried by Democratic Councilman Paul Detrick, a company representative acknowledged that unprocessed biomass could potentially be taken to a processing facility for conversion to make vaporized edibles.)

DiCapite, in response to Ward’s questioning, acknowledged the “original plan was to start with a greenhouse on this plot, but there were security concerns around the greenhouse, so we moved away from that.”

Resident Perry Doyle Jr., who retired from the Pemberton Police force after 18 years, however, suggested the operation will “bring in a level of crime, in looking at this place, that the Pemberton PD cannot handle.”

It’s not just going to be a lone gunman with a handgun that attempts to breach what security is in place at the barn, the retired officer maintained, “but five or six men with AK-47s” while a security guard stands by “with mace and two-way radios.”

“That thing is going to get hit by an armored car that drives right through it because it is a pole barn,” Perry Doyle maintained.

McWilliams, who claimed to have worked in the cannabis industry for four years in multiple different states, in a rebuttal, maintained “there has not been one attempt, with all these facilities existing, that resembles anything like you describe,” and that Eastern Tiger plans to follow a tactic similar to his current employer, “seeking off-duty police officers” to provide for security. But Perry Doyle retorted that Pemberton Police will still have to respond and are “not equipped to handle that” and “you are signing their death wish.”

Ward, who recognized “there are a lot of farmers in this room this evening,” made a pronouncement he would not be voting to give Eastern Tiger a letter of support, and expressed his concern about “water consumption” and what effect it might bring about to local farmers, claiming his research found that an “average, single cannabis plant is estimated to consume 22.7 liters per day during growing season, or what amounts to six gallons,” further contending that it is “double” what is consumed by a soy bean plant.

DiCapite responded that “it is much less than you think” and that cannabis is “one of the least consuming of all crops” when it comes to water, maintaining any plants would be watered through a “very controlled” process using sprinkler drips. The councilman’s figures, he maintained, “sound significant to me.”

“I do believe in agriculture, and sustainable farming,” Ward said. “I do support my farmers of my community. But to take away 17 acres of viable farmland from them, as well as put it in the location you are looking at, for me, it would be a ‘no.’ I don’t care about recreational adult use marijuana. My concern is we just approved a retailer quickly, and we are now getting into agriculture quickly. I hope my colleagues on council see that.”

Ward also questioned the viability of granting another one of the town’s licenses to operate so quickly, when there is the potential for a local wanting to obtain one in the future.

Democratic Councilwoman Elisabeth McCartney, meanwhile, who previously suggested sugar is potentially more harmful and addicting than cannabis in defending her position on the cannabis retailer, questioned the Eastern Tiger representatives about complaints involving a “Morris operation” they were apparently connected to regarding odor.

In response, one of the representatives responded, “that facility is on a much smaller property of 1.5 acres with “residential properties surrounding all of us,” some worth $1.2 million to $2 million, and that a specialized $800,000 system was installed to “measure air particles.” The Pemberton property, it was maintained, is “20 to 30 times further from our facility than what described from previous experience.”

Initially, when Gardner asked the Eastern Tiger representatives about “odor mitigation,” DiCapite replied it was among a “number of reasons” the company was planning to install a $1.5 million HVAC system with charcoal filters,” and that it is also why evergreens were being planted, because the trees are “proven to be one of the best odor mitigation plants around because they actually catch particles or dust in the air.”

“Standing next to the facility, I can’t guarantee you won’t smell something, but a field away should be pretty clear,” he maintained.

But after Perry Doyle pointed to nearby homes that he contended were missed in the renderings, and alleged the odor can actually travel up to five miles away, Republican Mayor Jack Tompkins pointed to a news story about an awful stench being created by a grow facility in North Jersey that took over a former Walmart and that his “big concern” was that Pemberton and nearby Springfield Township residents would get “double whammy” of “air pollution” from pollen and cannabis, and McCartney asked why the special $800,000 system can’t be done as mitigation on the North Pemberton Road site, DiCapite replied “he has relationships with that vendor, if needed” and “if there are any complaints, we can install one,” though he expressed some reluctance because it is “very expensive.”

Similar reluctance was also expressed by DiCapite when Gardner asked why the current plan does not call for a permanent generator to be on site to run the security mechanisms for the campus in the event of a power outage.

“I have a relationship with a local vendor that might lease generators,” said DiCapite when Gardner queried him about why he didn’t want to have one permanently installed, with the Eastern Tiger representatives maintaining they would simply operate on a battery backup system suggested by their security team. “It is pretty cost prohibitive. If and when there is an outage, I can call and have one delivered on site in 12-24 hours.” Gardner retorted that “my thing is security, especially at nighttime, if you have a power outage,” before asking, “You are going to round up a company to bring a generator over? How long is that going to take?”

It was the lack of guarantees to install the specialized air system and generator, in part, – in combination with the presentation’s heavy emphasis on “creating a habitat for wildlife,” including a section detailing how the facility’s glass would feature “bird-safe glass” because Pemberton is in a “migrant bird path,” that seemed to give the Democratic councilmembers some pause, in addition to the vocal opposition to the cannabis industry in general on display for a second meeting now, with the latter at one point so fierce that Gardner threatened to shut down the meeting altogether, and saw him briefly close down public comment.

“I am cannabis friendly,” Gardner declared. “But you guys are not giving me a lot of confidence that you know what you are doing. You seem unprepared, and unless you step up your game, and make me feel confident … I am willing to will work with you, but right now, I am not very confident.”

The Eastern Tiger representatives ultimately acknowledged that there “are a lot of things to massage” and they are “not farmers,” but that they will “go to the experts” and are “open” to their suggestions, including if a “different crop” should become necessary in place of the proposed evergreens, and that they would see about doing whatever pleases the council president, to which he retorted, it’s not what is best for him, but “what is best for the town.”

“The goal is not to reinvent the wheel,” DiCapite said. “We are trying to build something to look like a farm, and anything but an eyesore. It sounds like the problems we are talking about here are a lack of jobs. We are bringing tax revenue back in. We are offering to give to charities, but it sounds like maybe something else needs to be done (several attendees, including the local school board president highlighted how recent development has not seen increased contributions to the local school system and it is in need of financial assistance). We are more than happy to build upon programs in the community.”