Bellmawr seems OK with marijuana clinic

While many New Jersey communities have refused to host medical marijuana dispensaries during the last three years, blue-collar Bellmawr seems more relaxed, even a bit surprised that others would object.

"I don't care. If they run it properly, then it's just another business," said John Brown, who owns a heating and air-conditioning establishment directly behind the building in the Camden County borough that is being converted into a marijuana clinic and cultivation area.

"If it helps people who are in pain and can't see, that's wonderful," he said.

Several officials, business owners, and residents in the borough of 12,000 echoed the sentiment.

In a small industrial area just off Route 42, the Compassionate Sciences dispensary is expected to open early next year inside a plant that once pulsed with T-shirt screen printers that produced World Series fan wear and the like.

On Tuesday, workers were sealing the plant's window and door openings with cinder blocks to create a 16,000-square-foot area where marijuana plants would be nurtured under special lights.

The nonprofit is projecting a clientele of 3,000, said Andrei Bogolubov, dispensary spokesman. Compassionate Sciences Chairman William Statter, a North Jersey pharmacist, has declined interviews through his spokesman.

If the Bellmawr site receives final state and local approvals, it would be the second to open in South Jersey and among six that will serve clients statewide. A grand opening is planned in the next few weeks for a dispensary that found a home in a warehouse in an industrial park in Egg Harbor Township.

Bellmawr is a 3.1-square-mile hub for trucks and tractor-trailers coming off the bustling Route 42 and nearby New Jersey Turnpike, I-295, and Route 55. The borough also is known for the Bellmawr Industrial Park, a huge tract that houses International Paper, Goodwill Industries, J&J Snacks, and other businesses and warehouses.

"Traffic is our biggest issue," said Mayor Frank Filipek.

The borough is also home to a huge U.S. Postal Service processing center that years ago was a target of an anthrax attack. It has a massive landfill that is being capped to make way for a redevelopment project that could include hotels and a marina.

The dispensary is renting space on Coolidge Avenue, a small, bumpy road traversed by big rigs, and is surrounded by distributors, manufacturers, and an Air-Gas facility. The landlord is Develcom, the landfill redeveloper.

It also sits next to a house on Creek Road. No one answered a knock on the door, but there were some signs that it may be occupied.

A half-block away, the owner of a bungalow on Coolidge said that he had heard about the dispensary but had no worries. "What's it going to hurt?" he asked, declining to give his name and shrugging his shoulders. "The cops patrol every seven minutes here. There's no problem."

When Compassionate Sciences planned to open in a vacated furniture store in Maple Shade two years ago, angry residents packed a board meeting. Some raised the specter of increased crime and "potheads" hanging around.

At the time, no dispensary had opened, and there was the fear of the unknown. Since then, Greenleaf Compassion Center has opened in a former drug paraphernalia shop in Montclair, an upscale community outside New York City.