Bedford Street neighbor Sandra Burns addresses the West Haven Planning and Zoning Commission on April 28, 2026, speaking against an application to put a recreational cannabis store in an outbuilding on the Universal Hotel Liquidators property at 855 Boston Post Road. “You wouldn’t have this over on the West Shore … so why have it here?” she asked. “Don’t put something in my neighborhood that you wouldn’t have in your neighborhoods — and I’m tired of you doing it.”
Bedford Street neighbor Sandra Burns addresses the West Haven Planning and Zoning Commission on April 28, 2026, speaking against an application to put a recreational cannabis store in an outbuilding on the Universal Hotel Liquidators property at 855 Boston Post Road. “You wouldn’t have this over on the West Shore … so why have it here?” she asked. “Don’t put something in my neighborhood that you wouldn’t have in your neighborhoods — and I’m tired of you doing it.”
An architectural rendering of the proposed Shangri-La recreational cannabis store, which if approved would be in an outbuilding on the same property as the former National Wholesale Liquidators store at 855 Boston Post Rd. in West Haven.
The property at 855 Boston Post Road in West Haven photographed on July 7, 2021.
WEST HAVEN — If you want to buy legal cannabis in West Haven, go to Orange — or Milford or New Haven.
That's the message sent this week by the Planning and Zoning Board, which voted unanimously to deny a developer's application to open a recreational cannabis store in an outbuilding on the Universal Hotel Liquidators property at 855 Boston Post Road.
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A small crowd of Allingtown neighbors applauded afterward.
"You wouldn't have this over on the West Shore … So why have it here?" asked Sandra Burns, who has lived nearby on Bedford Street for 63 years.
"Don't put something in my neighborhood that you wouldn't have in your neighborhoods — and I'm tired of you doing it," Burns said during a continuation of a public hearing on the application, which preceded the vote. "West Haven does not have to be a pot town … We don't want that."
About 22 people attended the meeting.
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The proposed single-story, 4,595-square-foot Shangri-La adult-use cannabis store would be the first cannabis retail operation in West Haven. The city is home to one cannabis cultivation facility, Advanced Grow Labs on Frontage Road.
The commission first heard the application for a special permit and site plan application on April 14. It was continued to Tuesday, however, after one PZC member, Secretary Greg Milano, said a daycare center at 802 Boston Post Road was within the 800 feet buffer zone, according to minutes of the meeting.
As it turns out, according to the developer's calculations, the shortest "safe pedestrian route" between the site and the day care facility is 802 feet, according to Attorney Vincent Amendola, who represents the property owner and applicant, Alpha CT 7 Inc.
He was joined in that opinion by site planner Jeffrey Gordon of Codespoti & Associates of Orange.
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Amendola said his reading showed that there is no straight line between the properties and no cross walk, which would make the day care operation beyond the 800 feet in actual travel distance.
"We know that we comply" and the distance is "over 800 feet," said Gordon. "If someone wants to nitpick" and debate whether it's "802, 798 … we would just move the door another 5 feet," he said.
But several PZC members said the best route and how it's calculated are subject to interpretation, and their interpretation was different from the one put forth by Amendola and Gordon.
"I think people would take the path of less resistance" and perhaps walk across the parking lot, which is shorter, said Vice Chairman John Biancur. "You're saying it's 802," but "all I'm saying is, it's close," he said, suggesting that there is "one direct way" that might take up to 60 feet off the distance.
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"It's subject to interpretation" and "my interpretation is a bit different from what you're telling us," Biancur said.
"You're grasping, I believe, at straws," said PZC member Sammy Rivera, who owns a nearby car wash, laundromat and several transmission shops. "The majority of the people, they're going" to take the shortest possible route, he said.
But beyond that issue, "I'm not in favor of it. I don't even like the smell" of cannabis, Rivera said. "If somebody comes in my car wash" smelling of marijuana, "I wish I could charge them more."
One PZC member, Gene Sullivan, said there's actually a second day care facility, albeit not a children's day care center, almost directly across the street in the Baybrook Remodelers building at 824 Boston Post Road. He said he knows because he is on the board of directors of the West Haven Community House, which operates it.
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PZC Chairman Christopher Suggs acknowledged that there are state incentives to approve cannabis applications, including tax revenue, "but the question is, are those incentives worth it?" he wondered.
"Would it be the wisest use of that property?" he asked, pointing out that the West Haven stretch of Route 1 is much shorter than the Boston Post Road frontage in Milford and Orange, which gives West Haven more limited opportunities to develop it.
"I just don't now if it's the best (use) of that for this city for the future," Suggs said.
The city's zoning regulations state that "no marijuana dispensary … or cannabis establishment shall be permitted on a site that is less than 800 feet from any site containing a church, school, daycare center, public building, public park or recreation, or private recreation area."
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The regulations specify that distances "shall be measured from the nearest public entrance of the proposed establishment to the nearest public entrance of the existing uses," connecting each site along a perpendicular line to the nearest public street and then following along the street between the two sites.
During the public comment portion of the public hearing, several neighbors spoke against the application.
"I oppose this application. It's not the right location," said former City Council member Robbin Watt Hamilton. She pointed out that, among other things, "It would put a liquor store and a recreational cannabis on the same site. It's too much."
Hamilton also said that May V. Carrigan Intermediate School, New Haven's Engineering and Science University Magnet School, or ESUMS, and the University of New Haven all are nearby, "then there's this whole thing with the daycare nearby."
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Tetlow Street resident Samuel Rollins said the neighbors already deal with Route 1 noise pollution and "now we're going to deal with marijuana. I don't think it's a good look," he said. "…We don't want a lot of potheads."
"I understand that the state of Connecticut has decided that it's well and good to allow the sale of marijuana … But that doesn't mean that we want" it nearby, said Susan Chase Jones of Dalton Street.
Mark Zaretsky is a reporter with the New Haven Register. Zaretsky is a Chicago native and longtime New Haven resident and an award-winning reporter and music writer for the New Haven Register and Hearst Connecticut Media Group. His beats include East Haven and Branford, regional issues and occasional blues and roots music stories. He also makes a point of knowing where all the good ethnic and hole-in-the-wall restaurants, bars and bakeries are — and is an unapologetic Cubs, Bears, Blackhawks and Bulls fan. In addition to his work as a journalist, Zaretsky is a front man for The Cobalt Rhythm Kings and The Chicago Dawgs and occasionally performs with Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Mark Naftalin and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.
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