Planned Cannabis Dispensary Eyes Riverhead Bank Building

The first New York State-licensed legal weed shop on the East End may open in a vacant bank building in Riverhead, but the plan is far from finalized, officials say.

Mottz Only Authentic New York Style — one of the three dozen conditional adult-use retail dispensary (CUARD) licenses on Long Island — applied to open a recreational cannabis dispensary at 1201 Ostrander Avenue, but Riverhead town code prohibits such establishments from opening near a residential area. The application is expected to play out at upcoming town meetings.

Riverhead is one of four towns on Long Island that did not opt out of allowing pot shops or cannabis cafes — the other three being the towns of Southampton, Brookhaven and Babylon. The first state-licensed dispensary on LI opened in East Farmingdale earlier this year. Most proprietors have struggled to find a location.

The company — owned by Sean E. Lustberg, who owned and operated Upwise Capital LLC a secure financing firm for cannabis businesses — is one of 463 CUARD licensees across New York State, a fraction of which have opened for business or started offering deliveries amid the fledgling industry’s slow rollout that has been bogged down in litigation.

The process comes as Little Beach Harvest, a cannabis dispensary planned on the Shinnecock Nation territory in Southampton, is expected to open this fall. That dispensary is spared the state rules since it’s on sovereign land.