The Middletown Planning Board recently voted to declare its intent to serve as the lead agency in the planning of a new cannabis-processing facility at 55 Midland Avenue Extension. Jeeter, a subsidiary of Dreamfields Inc., makes pre-rolled cannabis joints that it sells in Canada, California, Michigan, Arizona, Massachusetts, and now, New York. The company just started selling its products in dispensaries across the state over the weekend.
Middletown, however, is not among the places where Jeeter’s joints will be sold. Democratic Middletown Mayor Joseph DeStefano says the city is only interested in the business of rolling the joints, not selling them.
“It’ll be a good addition for the economic drive of the region, because not only is it job-producing for the Middletown area and tax-producing for the Middletown area, but it’s also good for farmers who provide product to the facility," says DeStefano. "It’s not my cup of tea, but apparently a lot of people are drinking that cup of tea, and we’re happy to host the facility.”
Middletown opted not to allow dispensaries within city limits when New York was planning its legal cannabis market in 2021. It was far from the only municipality to do so, and many other communities in Orange County also ban dispensaries, but Middletown is the only city in the county to opt out.
DeStefano says the city wasn’t sure if it had the capacity to keep up with cannabis regulations at the time, and it was skeptical of how the legal market would pan out.
“We didn’t think New York would regulate it correctly in the beginning," he notes. "We wanted to have a wait-see. We don’t know what kind of producer it is, so we take a position on these types of things where we’ll take a step backwards, let other people take the lead on the retail and on the consumption, and we’ll just monitor and see how things go.”
DeStefano says the city could pass a law to opt-in to the retail market in the future, but he’s not currently in favor of the idea, and he doesn’t see it happening any time soon.
But he views the Jeeter facility differently, describing it as a “pharmaceutical processing” operation. Cannabis will not be grown or dried on the site, only packaged. DeStefano says the building is a good fit because it’s in a non-residential area, has been in and out of use for years, requires few updates for Jeeter, and has enough internal controls to limit emissions and smells.
"Some people have expressed concerns about potential odors — and first of all, it’s not a residential neighborhood, it’s in the industrial area. In fact, next door is a metal recycling facility," DeStefano explains. "But it’s a closed setting, it’s heavily regulated.”
DeStefano says Jeeter has already started hiring for the factory, and it’s expected to bring roughly 200 jobs to the region. SUNY Orange, which leads six community colleges in the Hudson Valley Cannabis Consortium, is reportedly looking at ways to create a talent pool and develop workforce training for the region’s cannabis industry.
"Being able to have an organization land right here in Middletown that does a variety of different things is going to be huge," says Dr. Jean Leandre, vice president of workforce, strategy and innovation at SUNY Orange. "The Hudson Valley, a lot of the things we've seen, the employers coming in — it's mostly been retail."
Meantime, DeStefano says he expects the planning board’s process to be short, taking only about a month.
