Bridgeport medical cannabis facility faces May 3 deadline, or loses its license

Last night’s rejection by the Bridgeport Planning and Zoning Commission of a Main Street location for a medical-marijuana dispensary is a big setback. William Rubenstein, commissioner of the state Department of Consumer Protection, just said that the recent award of the license requires D&B Wellness, owned by Angela D’Amico and Karen Barski, both of Trumbull, to provide proof of zoning approval by May 3. Rubenstein said he’s not sure how much more local appeals are available to D&B Wellness. The P&Z panel said that D&B’s proposal wasn’t a pharmacy as suggested, but the state’s regulatory model is based on the premise that the dispensaries, which will be run by pharmacists, will operate like pharmacies for patients registered in the medical cannabis program, which currently has about 2,000 patients statewide. “We’ll decide further after that date,” Rubenstein said in an interview. So if it walks like a pharmacy and talks like a pharmacy, does D&B’s lawyer, Ray Rizio, have time to appeal to the state Supreme Court, as he suggested in today’s Connecticut Post. In all, six dispensary proposals were approved on April 3.