Stephen Reid is the mayor of Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey. In December 2017, under Mayor Reid’s leadership, Point Pleasant became the first New Jersey city to preemptively ban any cannabis industry operations, should the state legalize them. The Point Pleasant Beach ban kicked off a statewide trend, leading to more than 10 percent of all New Jersey towns, representing nearly every county, passing resolutions restricting, banning or opposing cannabis industry operations and adult-use legalization.
Today, the total number of towns that have opted out has topped 60, and Mayor Reid continues to be a leading voice in the effort to oppose marijuana reform — in fact, he gets paid to do so. Thanks to the investigative efforts of blogger Patrick Duff, we now know that Point Pleasant Beach Mayor Stephen Reid is on the payroll of an influential anti-marijuana lobbying group.
Mayor of First New Jersey Town to Ban Weed Is on the Payroll of an Anti-Cannabis Lobby
In late November 2018, New Jersey lawmakers in both the Assembly and Senate voted to advance an adult-use bill, marking the first official legislative action on the issue since pro-legalization Gov. Phil Murphy assumed office in 2018. But since their 2016 takeover of the New Jersey legislature, Democrats have expanded qualifying conditions for medical cannabis treatments, licensed more dispensaries and centered criminal justice reform.
At the same time, opposition to the adult-use industry dug in, and a groundswell of anti-cannabis advocacy prompted a number of cities to opt out of any legal-weed future. Point Pleasant Beach mayor Stephen Reid has been at the heart of that movement. After making his city the first to ban the retail cannabis industry in late 2017, Reid has traveled around the