South Jersey woman loses court claim that she was edged out of cannabis dispensary license
"How do you not see that what happened to me was wrong?" asked Jennifer Baus, who took Swedesboro to court when she was denied a license to open a recreational weed dispensary
A Gloucester County judge denied and dismissed the complaint of a Swedesboro businessperson who had gone to trial to overturn the town’s decision to block her from opening a recreational cannabis dispensary.
Rejecting every issue raised by Jennifer Baus, Superior Court Judge Benjamin Telsey ruled via Zoom from a Woodbury courtroom on Tuesday that Swedesboro officials had not acted “arbitrarily, capriciously, or unreasonably,” as Baus had alleged.
“I was really stunned that the judge didn’t agree with any single thing about our case,” Baus said after the 90-minute civil trial without witnesses ended. She said she plans to appeal the ruling.
After not getting a dispensary license, Baus, a Black woman who is contending separately in federal court that she was racially discriminated against by Swedesboro in the matter, put up two billboards last month protesting how Swedesboro officials allegedly treated her. They read: “Swedesboro Mayor & Council vote against local minority business woman,” along with the website JennsTRUTH.com and a QR code.
Baus, 44, is a finance manager at Spirit Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram, a Swedesboro auto dealership owned by her in-laws, where her husband, Michael, is the general manager. Baus also owns the Hip Hop Shop, a local dance studio.
“I’m not surprised by the results,” said attorney David Avedissian of Haddonfield, who represented Las Vegas-based Jersey Joint Dispensary Swedesboro (JJDS), which was ultimately awarded a cannabis sales license in town. “When you have allegations without facts, you have an uphill climb in court.”
Michael Miles of Westmont, who represented Swedesboro, said: “The truth has prevailed. The borough is very happy with the court’s decision today.”
Baus’ attorney, Micci Weiss of Holmdel, said he would not comment.
One of the main points that Telsey rejected was Baus’ contention that the borough had deliberately given her the wrong application for a dispensary license.
“This was a calculated concealment, not an oversight or a mistake,” Weiss had written in court papers.
People representing Baus in the licensing process had requested a cannabis dispensary license but were given the wrong document. Though Baus and her emissaries checked and rechecked with borough officials, Baus said, she was consistently told that the application she had been given was correct.
In the meantime, JJDS, which Baus had not known about, got the approval to go ahead with its dispensary plan while Baus was still struggling to get the right papers in front of Swedesboro officials, she said.
In sharp language, Telsey said in court that Baus’ company, the Greenhouse, had “failed to timely submit the appropriate applications to obtain the license.” It was Baus’ responsibility to ascertain the proper license, regardless of which form officials initially gave her, Telsey said.
He added: “Instead of accepting [her] failures to read and follow the clear law” on obtaining a dispensary license, Baus had “concocted a conspiracy theory designed to do nothing more than to blame the defendants for plaintiff’s deficiencies.”
Telsey repeated his contention that Baus and Weiss had perpetuated a “conspiracy theory” when they had revealed in court papers that Delaware resident Tracy Valichka, a co-owner of JJDS, is the sister-in-law of the borough’s zoning officer, Jennifer Valichka.
“It was never disclosed to plaintiffs” until much later in the process, after Swedesboro had already decided that JJDS would get the dispensary license, Weiss wrote.
“The borough’s blatant favoritism, procedural misconduct, and undisclosed conflicts of interest … tainted the licensing process,” he charged.
Baus said she had long wondered how a Nevada company got wind of a Swedesboro dispensary when so few people knew it was being contemplated. “Maybe someone on the inside told them,” she said. “It feels like they never wanted a Black woman to run such a high-profile business.”
Dismissing the accusations of nepotism, Telsey said in court that the fact that the relative of a borough official is part of the company that was awarded the license is a “nonissue.” He further stated that Jennifer Valichka had not weighed in on dispensary applications.
Telsey added: “There’s no facts to support the conspiracy theory that Miss [Jennifer] Valichka was behind the scenes,” orchestrating events.
Baus suggested that Telsey misread that part of her complaint, saying she had never alleged that Valichka was a “puppet master orchestrating everything.”
Saying she will need time to recover from Telsey’s “shocking” verdict, Baus said she was incredulous that absolutely nothing she’d alleged had resonated with the judge.
“I don’t understand that,” she said. “How do you not see that what happened to me was wrong?”