Supervisor John Valk has been saying for months that the Town of Shawangunk needed to “buy more time” to digest the complexities of the state’s regulations governing cannabis dispensaries and on-site consumption lounges before allowing them in his community.

The Town Board made that position official at its meeting Thursday as it voted unanimously to opt out of both marijuana stores and lounges.

Valk and Councilmen Brian Amthor and Adrian DeWitt all voted to opt out of the pot shops and consumption lounges. Outgoing Councilman Matthew Watkins left the meeting before the vote was taken and Councilman Robert Miller was absent.

A handful of speakers voiced their support for allowing both cannabis dispensaries and on-site consumption lounges in the Town of Shawangunk at the public hearing before the official vote was taken.

It was a small turnout compared to an informational meeting on Sept. 16 where about 15 people in the audience of 70 spoke on the idea of opening cannabis businesses in the town. The speakers were about evenly divided on whether or not marijuana could be sold in retail stores or smoked in on-site lounges in the town at the September session.

Under the state law legalizing the recreational use of marijuana, signed in September, municipalities in New York have until the end of the year to opt out of allowing pot shops and lounges within their borders. Communities that let the deadline pass without action will not be allowed to ban such shops but still will be allowed to regulate where they can operate.

Although the Shawangunk board passed the opt out legislation to keep cannabis stores and lounges out of the town, community residents who oppose the decision can file a petition within 45 days to force a public vote on the issue.

Shawangunk’s vote to ban cannabis retail stores and smoking lounges came one day after the nearby Town of Plattekill took the same action. Two days before the Shawangunk local law to opt out was finalized, the Town of Gardiner banned lounges but approved retail marijuana shops to open within its boundaries.

By opting out at this time, the Shawangunk board has the option of reversing course in the future by adopting a new local law approving the retail stores and lounges.

“We’re just looking to bide time like most communities are,” Valk said after the meeting. “I was up in Worcester, Massachusetts, two weeks ago and they have regulations where they can be located and how they’re supposed to look. We need to do that too, if we’re going to have them in town. It’s something we might decide to do in the next couple months. It’s up to the board members. It’s very controversial.”

“I’m not comfortable getting into something that I can’t get out of,” DeWitt said. “If we decide to opt in in the next six or eight months, we haven’t lost a lot of (tax) revenue.”

There is a local 4 percent excise tax imposed on the sale of cannabis products from a retail dispensary to a cannabis customer. This tax is distributed to local governments based on the location of the dispensary.

Municipalities that allow pot shops to open will get 75 percent of the local tax revenue.

“I’m always a firm believer of letting other communities test the waters,” Valk said. “We don’t have to be the first in line.”

“I think we need to think this thing out and do the right zoning and there are laws to follow,” Amthor said. “Just doing it to do it isn’t the right thing to do. We realize this is the way things are going and how the future is. We just have to have control of it in our town.”

In other news, the board appointed John Szarowski to fill a vacancy on the Planning Board. His one-year appointment is through 2022.

A 1995 graduate of SUNY Buffalo with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering, Szarowski is a vice president of KC Engineering and Land Surveying, P.C. in Newburgh.

Free rapid at-home COVID-19 test kits donated by Ulster County will be available at the Town Hall starting Monday, Dec. 20, Town Clerk Jane Rascoe confirmed. Town residents can begin picking them up at 9 a.m. at the Town Hall, 14 Central Ave. in Wallkill.

Town officials who were elected or reelected in the November election will be sworn in at 3 p.m. on Dec. 29 at the Town Hall.