Southampton’s pot‑shop rules are “unreasonably impracticable” and plainly illegal,
the State Attorney General’s Office told a federal judge in a fresh letter the Post has obtained.
The letter, dated Nov. 28, explained that the town has no legal power to pile on extra permits, fees and zoning barriers that run counter to New York’s cannabis statutes, according to AG Letitia James’s office.
U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert is currently presiding over the dispute between the upscale waterfront community and the recently opened Brown Budda cannabis dispensary.
Local officials are accused of twisting the town’s zoning code to block pot shops from opening, even attempting to bill Brown Budda a $40,000 fee for a sidewalk it never needed, according to sources familiar with the shop and the Attorney General’s correspondence.
A section of the Southampton Town Code, §330‑162.26, is declared “preempted and invalid,” the letter said.
“The New York State Cannabis Control Board” (CCB) had already found that the provision made operating licensed retail cannabis dispensaries “unreasonably impracticable,” and had struck down most of the town’s rules in October as overly strict and designed to keep legal dispensaries out.
The CCB also invalidated attempts to regulate weed deliveries within the town, calling any such effort “completely outside of municipal authority.”
Despite that ruling, Southampton insisted on the $40,000 sidewalk, which the shop’s executive, Marquis Hayes, defied and opened the storefront on Nov. 12 without town approval, forcing the issue back to court.
Representatives of Brown Budda have long said the town’s conditions were stalling tactics that caused the shop to suffer millions in losses.
State regulators had green‑lit Brown Budda’s location and issued a full retail license back in 2022, confirming the site met all New York legal requirements.
Town attorney Jim Burke declined to comment.
A Brown Budda spokesperson praised the AG’s letter as “vindicating” and said the shop lost at least two years of operation due to the town’s delays.
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