As most Chronicle readers will know, on Tuesday evening April 14, the Croton Planning Board approved an application to open a cannabis dispensary at 370 South Riverside Avenue. The decision was made despite considerable community opposition, on the grounds that legally the village supposedly had no choice under New York state law, having not opted out of retail dispensaries when it had the opportunity to do so back in 2021.
In a Commentary published the next day, we criticized village officials for keeping residents in the dark about the proposed dispensary and the application to the village for what we believed was a matter of many months.
At the beginning of the Board of Trustees Work Session last evening (April 15), after the board members returned from an executive session, the Village Manager read a statement about these matters. He has kindly provided the text of it below.
The statement by Bryan Healy confirms that the village was first contacted by the presumptive proprietor, Vincent Silvestri, who also runs the Mindset Dispensary in Tarrytown, about eleven months ago. That first contact was apparently with the former Village Engineer, Dan O’Connor. We will let readers peruse the statement and draw their own interpretations and conclusions from it.
We will, however, flag a suggestion in the statement that O’Connor did not transmit a key document to Healy’s office when it was first received. We have twice emailed O’Connor at his private email address asking him to comment, but not yet received a response. If we do we will include it in an update.
The statement confirms our contention that there was a great deal going on behind the scenes over many months, including an attempt to convince state officials to move the location of the dispensary. Nevertheless, village residents—and possibly some members of the Board of Trustees—were kept in the dark until quite recently.
“As many are aware, the Planning Board approved a change of use application last evening for a cannabis dispensary at 370 South Riverside Avenue. I have been asked to provide some further detail regarding the application process that led up to the meeting last evening.
The Village was contacted in May 2025 by the business operator, Vincent Silvestri. He met with the former Village Engineer and provided some initial information on his proposed business. Mr. Silvestri was told at that time that the Village did not believe the dispensary could open in that location due to the distance requirements imposed by the state.
In October 2025, a building permit application was received for the proposed dispensary at 370 South Riverside Ave. It was at this time that the applicant produced a copy of the municipal notification form, with a village timestamp of May 8, 2025. Despite a diligent search, I have not located a physical copy of this form in our offices. I believe the form was submitted during the meeting in May 2025 and not transmitted to my office. If it had been, it would have been put on a Village Board agenda for community notification, as had been done with previous applications.
The Village Attorney immediately contacted the Office of Cannabis Management to submit our protests against this location. We provided evidence that the day care center serves a wide variety of students, including those who are school-aged. Nevertheless, OCM re-affirmed their decision that the location met the appropriate distance requirements in November 2025.
Since the 30-day window for comments had lapsed, the Village Attorney and I then worked diligently with the applicant to find an alternative location for them to open their business. Despite investigating numerous locations in various areas of the Village, we were unable to agree on a suitable location to move the business and were pressed to make a decision on the application that was submitted.
After getting further guidance from the Village Attorney, it was determined to proceed with the submitted application and send it to the Planning Board for a change of use approval, where reasonable time, place and manner restrictions could be imposed. The Village Engineer will now review their building permit application and, if everything is code-compliant, issue the appropriate permits.”
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Department of Correction: On April 14 we published a press release sent to us and which announced that the Working Families Party had endorsed the slate of three candidates put forward by Croton Democrats. That release erroneously stated that WFP had endorsed Sam Watkins for Village Justice in the past. We are now informed that this statement was incorrect. A correction has already been made on the Web version of the story.
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Instead of spending time on banner/sign violations of residents, running into first amendment and speech laws; and now looking at changing said laws on signage, maybe there should have been clear zoning laws setup on where these dispensaries could operate in the village? Riverside is insanely more congested post covid and parking is an issue.