In Sweden, two identical billboards welcome drivers who enter a tiny town, with about 2,700 inhabitants.
“The Swedish mayor and council vote against the local business minority,” they read with the website Jennstruth.com and QR code.
Jenn to Jennifer Bauses (pronounced Boss), black owner of a local company, whom application The opening of the recreational cannabis pharmacy in the city was rejected. Last month, she paid USD 850 for signs after suiting Szwedsboro, as well as the competing outpatient group, to which the city finally awarded the license in September.
Her case will be considered in the trial without accusing without witnesses in the Supreme Court in New Jersey on Tuesday in Woodbury. Baus also complained to the federal court in Camden, which is underway.
Baus’s efforts to start operations have evolved into a fight with Swedesboro, full of allegations of racism, nepotism, corruption and ineptitude, emphasizing multi -generational family reluctance to feud.
“I was shocked and cried,” said Baus in an interview. “It was terrible.”
Swedish swims against a tide in relation to weeds. Only about 37% of 564 municipalities in New Jersey decided to permission to Konopi, said Todd Johnson, executive director Konopia Trade Association in New Jersey.
According to New Jersey, there are currently 215 hemp pharmacies, mostly recreational, of them recreational Indian cannabis regulatory committee. Ken Wolski, only five of them are purely medical marijuana distributors Coalition for Marijuana New Jersey.
Most cities are decreasing on the sale of weeds for various reasons: officials do not yet know how to control the company; They are afraid of crime; They are restless when it comes to community accumulation Stains for weed smokers.
Why accept recreational hemp pharmacies? It’s basic, said Johnson. State business marijuana is worth a billion dollars.
Swedesboro officials decided against the weed in 2021, when New Jersey legalized Recreational marijuana. But in 2023, Baus suggested an ambulator, an idea to which the leaders of the district were open – until.
“I was sabotaged as a black woman,” said 44 -year -old Baus Spirit Chrysler Dodge Jeep RamThe Swedish automotive dealer belonging to her in -laws, where her husband, Michael, is the general director. BAUS is also the owner Hip hop shopLocal dance studio.
In the court files, lawyer David Avedissian from Haddonfield, who represents the joint ambulator Jersey Swedesboro (JJDS) -Firma based in Las Vegas, which eventually awarded the license for the sale of cannabis in the city, said that Baus claims that Baus says racism “without confirming facts”, adding that she ” [her] own disadvantages. “
Neither adedissian nor the lawyer Baus Micci Weiss from Holmdel, nor lawyer Westmont Michael Miles, who represents the district, would discuss the case. Similarly, JJDS directors and individual Swedish officials did not answer Inquirer’s requests for comment.
“My own child”
For Baus, leading an outpatient was a dream.
“I have worked in the car industry all my life,” said Baus. “This pharmacy will be something I built, my own child.”
The planned place she planned would have from $ 4 million to $ 6 million a year. City Alloy SilversteinAccounting company Cherry Hill.
Marijuana, which was not run with business, asked his friend Kris Wilson for facilitate. Wilson is the owner Woolwich Wellness CompanyHemp operation from seeds for sale.
“I had no money in Jenn’s business,” said Wilson in an interview. “I am a friend who loves the family. Spirit Dodge is the cornerstone of the community, sponsoring Little League, providing parades cars.”
In October 2023, Wilson contacted the town to discuss the licensing of the outpatient clinic called Greenhouse.
In court documents supporting BAUS, Weiss He wrote that Wilson was white, and Swedish officials did not know that a black woman – with whom they eventually engage in “discriminatory proceedings” – was the founder of Greenhouse.
Wilson personally cooperated with city officials and through e -mail for five months. When the Swedish mayor Thomas Fromm learned that Baus was involved, “made a face” and said, “Oh, Bauses,” Wilson said in an interview.
“In addition to being black, there is bad blood between the mayor and my husband’s family,” said Baus. “Small, small towns.” Michael Baus said that about 15 years ago his father, a Republican, was against Maz, Democrat who had been mayor for 22 years. Elder Baus lost 17 votes “And the elections remain in Paradise of Fromm,” said Michael.
Jennifer Baus said that Swedesboro seemed open to her idea to strengthen the tax base.
Everything you need
On May 21 last year, in court files, Wilson sent E -Mail to Jena Dolbow, a district official/registrar, asking: “How quickly we would submit our application to a hemp seller and get to the planning/commune committee? Is there a conclusion … Do we have to complete?”
Dolbow directed Wilson to plan the secretary of the Heather Council, writing: “He will explain everything you need.”
The samples were sent by Wilson form. “Is this all we need to submit a hemp retail application?” Wilson asked her.
“Yes, everything is outlined in the application,” she answered the samples.
The form would take Baus four months. She said that she required experts from her, such as engineers and architects $ 50,000 to employ them.
She and Wilson thought it all seemed excessive. Baus shared his misunderstandings with a member of the Swedish council, who told Baus to “continue and that he would go through it,” results from court files.
Then everything fell apart.
On August 19, Swedish issued a resolution supporting JJDS for the outpatient clinic, and results from the files. Baus said she was shocked, wondering how from outside the city they could fill in the form so quickly and jump over it.
“It turns out that,” said Wilson, “we received the wrong form – a complicated form of the site’s plan, not the hemp retail form, which I asked, which took 48 hours and cost USD 10,000, not USD 50,000.”
Weiss stated in court files that “it was calculated, not supervision or error.”
Wilson said: “One hundred percent I think they deliberately gave us the wrong application. I am so injured for Jenn and I can’t do anything, just sit down and watch.”
Avedissian tells another story in his court files.
Baus “History, which … [she] He was misleaded by the district is an excuse to try to hide … [her] own mistake – he wrote.
He put on Baus and Wilson for relying “blindly on the councils of the district official to contact … [Samples] In the case of information about hemp application. “The argument that” the lack of applying for the Baus license is the official’s fault, is either untrue, incompetent or both. “
Writing in court files for Swedesboro officials, Miles said that When Dolbow read E -Mail Wilson with a question about two aspects of applying for a pharmacy – how to get a “hemp retailer” and how to go before planning – “Dolbov noticed only his reference to the Planning Council.” That’s why she told Wilson to consult the samples.
“It’s a gigantic mistake,” said Baus. “Their task is to provide the right application.”
Avedissian also said that JJDS, led by Dustin AlvinoThe broker and entrepreneur of the real estate in Las Vegas represented a “more solid” financial position than Baus “and had experience in conducting pharmacies. Borough officials also gave higher JJDS results in the verification process, which Baus rejected as biased.
Avedissian came to the conclusion that Baus had “many opportunities” during the process of submitting a full application for an outpatient clinic, but he did not.
Baus said she tried to contact MM on a defective trial, but that she was not reacting. “I begged him to help me,” she said. “Why didn’t someone ask me why my application lasted so long? Why did JJD get the right application and I didn’t?” Fromm did not answer the request for an interview.
‘Bomb’
Baus claims that she received an answer in what she said that this is another “bomb”:
According to the plaintiff’s reports, a resident of Delaware, Tracy Valichka, described in court documents as a co -owner of JJDS, is the sister -in -law of the zone officer Jennifer Valichka.
“This has never been revealed for the reasons”, as long as the Swedish one has already decided that JJD will receive a license at the Ambulator, Weiss he wrote.
“The glaring favors of the district, improper procedural behavior and undisclosed conflicts of interest … the licensing process contributed,” he accused. Jennifer Valichka did not answer the request for comment. Documents show that Valichka never voted for any application for an outpatient clinic.
Baus said that she has long been wondering how Nevada got a Swedish outpatient clinic when so few people knew that it was being considered. “Maybe someone told them,” she said. “It seems that they never wanted a black woman to run such a loud company.”
As part of compensation, Weiss asks that the judge intervene in the case for “annulment of the incorrect actions of the district” and direct the Swedish support of the greenhouse for the pharmacy. BAUS also asks for reimbursement for the application, and lawyer fees in the amount of over 100,000 USD.
Avedissian said that these demands are “draconian and not supported by any legal authority.” He added that Baus never proved that she had a racial discrimination and that the “innocent party” (JJDS) should not be punished for compliance with the rules of the greenhouse.
Buzz
Since Baus erected his signs last month, people in the city who were not aware of the controversy about the outpatient clinic.
Some accused Baus of a “bait for a race” to achieve their points. Others said that they prefer a local resident, such as Baus, led an outpatient clinic. Many claimed that the Swede in the weed industry did not want at all.
“I went to many meetings in the district about the outpatient clinic,” said 58 -year -old Wende Campanile, who owned two fitness companies in the city.
“People are very concerned about how it fell. Swedish did some manipulative, backdoor.
“After all, it seems that they went with nepotism and believing that they will earn more money thanks to a huge corporation of things.”
Baus said that what happens next depends on the judge.
“It’s a process on the zoom,” she said. “I don’t think I can watch. I’m so afraid.”
