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VOL. 32 NO. 39
SEPTEMBER 23 - 29, 2021
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SSHS athletes, coaches to HOF South Side standouts will be enshrined in county athletics hall By MIKE SMOLLINS msmollins@liherald.com
Tom Carrozza/Herald
These neighbors rock Playing on the Porch returned to Rockville Centre last Saturday, and the band Those Damn Neighbors jammed on Linden Street. The musical outing, sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce, showcased local artists while promoting local businesses.
Three for mer South Side High School soccer players and two coaches will be inducted into the Nassau County High School Athletics Hall of Fame on Sept. 29 at the Crest Hollow Country Club in Woodbury. Former girls’ soccer teammates Kim Conway-Haley, Dina Grossman-Case and Traci Sofsian-Maier will be recognized, along with girls’ volleyball coach Cheryl Scalice and longtime official and volleyball coach Dotty Lynch. They will enter the hall as part of the 48-member class of 2020, after the event was post-
poned last year due to the coronavirus pandemic. This year’s inductees are the sixth class to enter the Hall of Fame.
Kim Conway-Haley
Conway-Haley, 49, helped South Side capture its first girls’ soccer state title in 1987 as a defender. She graduated in 1990, and went on to play at Virginia, where she became a finalist for the Herrmann Trophy, which is awarded to the top female college soccer player in the country. After that, she played in Holland before joining the United Soccer League’s women’s league and CONTINUED ON PAGE 16
As expected, village trustees opt out of retail sale of weed By TOM CARROZZA tcarrozza@liherald.com
After listening to public comments by several residents in a meeting outside Village Hall on Sept. 13, the village board of trustees unanimously voted to prohibit the retail sale of cannabis and the operation of dispensaries in the village. The decision prompted reactions from those who had made the final public comments before the vote. Joe Adipietro, the program director for the RVC Youth Coalition, spoke in favor of the optout. Adipietro, a licensed mental health and substance abuse pro-
fessional for nearly 30 years, spoke about what he has seen in his patients that cannabis use may have contributed to. “The majority of the patients that I have seen over the years with severe mental health conditions — prior to that diagnosis, they most all have one thing in common: they started using marijuana,” Adipietro said. “It also sends the wrong message to youth. They think that if something is legal, nothing is wrong with it.” Resident Mary Ellen Nofi said she was also pleased to see the village opt out. “I always felt that people trying to make money at the expense of young people is
very unfair and unnecessary,” Nofi said. “I’m happy. I feel like they’re in our corner. They care about their children and grandchildren.” Corey Anderson was the lone dissenting voice, arguing that officials should allow cannabis dispensaries. “In five years, when you realize that another town has repaved their roads with their $5 million tax revenue,” Anderson said, “I think we’re going to look and say we might’ve made a mistake here.” Commenting on whether the sale of marijuana would lead to more criminal activity in the village, Anderson noted the occasional alcohol-related incidents
on weekend nights, and said he wasn’t arguing to make alcohol illegal instead of cannabis. When former Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed legislation to legalize marijuana on April 30, New York became the 15th state to make its recreational use lawful. In early March, the U.S. cannabis industry hit a record $17.5 billion in sales, increasing 46
percent since 2019, according to a report by the cannabis sales data platform BDSA. The 128-page Marihuana Regulation and Taxation Act addressed everything from enforcement and criminal justice reform to how taxes would be levied on marijuana producers and retailers and how the CONTINUED ON PAGE 19