To Community Board 8 and the Office of Cannabis Management:

We, the undersigned, residents and friends of Roosevelt Island, urge you to reject the proposal to open a Cannabis Dispensary at 520 Main Street on Roosevelt Island.  Our reasons are as follows:

• Roosevelt Island is a very small community with many young children: according to the 2020 Census 25% of Island apartments contain a child under the age of 18. 
• The proposed dispensary site (see visual, above) is directly in between the public school (PS/IS 217), a special education school (The Child School), multiple sites of religious worship, the local dance and music center (Main Street Theater & Dance Alliance), the Youth Center, a child care center for Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the New York Public Library. Many of these locations are less than 200 feet from the proposed site but because the buildings are multi-use (a unique feature of our architecture) the zoning laws do not apply.
• Roosevelt Island has only one street, so children will have to walk past the dispensary multiple times every day. 
• Deliveries, customers and the mandated cannabis waste removal will tax the already busy Main Street which is the only thoroughfare for cars, emergency vehicles, city buses, etc.. 
• Customers arriving via public transit will burden our limited options which are already overcrowded. 
• Roosevelt Island does not have any regular NYPD presence or patrols.  We have a Public Safety team that is paid for by resident taxes.
• Cannabis Dispensaries that deliver to Roosevelt Island are already open in Long Island City, Astoria and on the Upper East Side, so residents do not have difficulty obtaining legal product as needed.

Please respect the wishes of our community!