Category: Linden NJ

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>TRENTON: Bill would block new referendum votes for a decade

>Bill would block new referendum votes for a decade

Reformists are crying foul over a bill that they say is aimed at stopping a group of New Brunswick activists from changing the way the city elects its council members. The bill, which has passed the senate and is set for an assembly vote on Monday, would force groups to wait a decade between tries to change the way municipal governments are elected. “That’s an abuse of the Legislature,” said the New Jersey Appleseed attorney Diana Jeffrey, who represents the New Brunswick Group, Empower Our Neighborhoods. “This is trying to make them stop two years from now, and make them wait ten years.” After months of wrangling, Empower Our Neighborhoods managed to get a question on the ballot in November that would expand the city council from five at-large members to nine members, of whom three would be at-large and six from wards. The question was defeated by just over 100 votes. The group plans to try again in two years. But if the bill is passed and signed into law, they will not be able to. Current law allows petitions to change the form of municipal governments to be brought every two, three or four years, depending on the type of government. The new law, sponsored by Assemblywoman Annette Quijano (D-Elizabeth), would only allow those petitions to be brought once every 10 years. An identical version of the bill sponsored by state Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D-Linden) passed the senate yesterday 21-15 in a vote that was largely along party lines. Among the yes votes was Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck), who has built a reformist reputation by Bergen County’s entrenched Democratic Party machinery. Weinberg said she intended to vote no but hit the wrong button because she w as distracted by a phone call. “I just looked up and pushed the yes button, and I didn’t realize it was that bill, which I had marked down on my list to vote no on. I made a mistake and didn’t know it until the board was closed,” said Weinberg, adding that she was lobbying her assembly colleagues to vote no on the bill on Monday. Jeffrey made the case in a letter to Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts (D-Camden), writing that the bill would “take away citizens’ rights of self governance and self determination.” (Friedman, PolitickerNJ)

https://www.politickernj.com/matt-friedman/35908/bill-would-block-new-referendum-votes-decade

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>Auto repair firm with Ridgewood location cited by regulators

>Thursday, September 3, 2009
Last updated: Thursday September 3, 2009, 11:39 AM
BY KEVIN DEMARRAIS
The Record
STAFF WRITER

A Lodi-based auto repair chain has been sued by state regulators, charged with allegedly billing customers for work that was not done, including wheel alignments and other jobs for which some of the chain’s 13 shops didn’t even have the necessary equipment.

In a five-count complaint filed today in Superior Court in Elizabeth, Brake-O-Rama was also cited for allegedly offering coolant flushes, power-steering purges, or power steering flushes when some stores lacked the necessary equipment.

In addition, Brake-O-Rama shops in Lodi, Ridgewood and other locations were allegedly advertising and selling motor vehicle inspection services when its stores were not licensed to do so. Instead, Brake-O-Rama took the vehicles to state inspection sites, where inspections are free, even as it charged customers for the service, the state says in its court filing.

The lawsuit, brought under the Consumer Fraud Act by the Office of the Attorney General, follows an undercover investigation in June by inspectors from the Division of Consumer Affairs at the chain’s repair shops in Jersey City, Brick, Linden, West New York and Elizabeth.

Superior Court Judge John F. Malone granted the state’s request for temporary restraining order – which Brake-O-Rama did not object to – that bars the chain from advertising and selling services it can’t provide, including state inspections, and from destroying, concealing or altering any books or records related to its repair services.

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>N.J. OKs medical marijuana bill

>Associated Press

https://www.courierpostonline.com/article/20081216/NEWS01/812160348/1006/news01

New Jersey moved closer to allowing chronically ill patients to smoke marijuana to relieve symptoms of pain and nausea by advancing a medical marijuana bill Monday.

The bill was approved 6-1 by the Senate Health Committee following a lengthy and sometimes passionate hearing that attracted scores of supporters and detractors including a doctor, multiple sclerosis patients, and a marijuana grower from Canada.

New Jersey would become the 14th state with a medical marijuana law on its books.

Those who favor the bill, including its Senate sponsor, Sen. Nicholas Scutari of Linden, said the “Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act” would allow a “new route of treatment” for patients with AIDS, cancer, MS, and other serious illnesses for whom other drugs fail.

“Society is able to distinguish between the lawful use of a substance” and recreational use or drug abuse,” said Scutari, a Democrat.

The measure allows chronically ill patients to petition Human Services to allow them to use marijuana medicinally. Physician certification of their condition would be required.

If approved, the patient would be issued an identification card allowing them to grow six marijuana plants or access the drug at an alternative medicine center without fear of being arrested or prosecuted.

Responding to critics who say medicinal marijuana amounts to tacit approval of an illegal drug, Scutari said safeguards have been built in to the proposal.

Patients would not be able to smoke and drive, for example, and would be barred from smoking in public places. They’d be permitted to possess only a small amount of the drug, he said.

“This is not legalizing marijuana for recreational use,” he said.

Opponents argued that allowing patients to smoke marijuana is akin to approving drug use.

They said the pill Marinol, made from a synthetic form of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, has FDA approval and is as effective as smoking the drug.

David Evans, executive director of the national Drug Free Schools Coalition, cited the lack of scientific studies on marijuana use.

“You have to make sure it is safe,” he said. “There are no proper studies about dose, how many times do you take it. Once this bill is approved, you can smoke your head off all day long.”

Patients, however, disagreed.

They said they didn’t get high, but were able to function with the drug. Marinol did not work as well, if at all, they said.

Sen. Bill Baroni, a Hamilton Township Republican who voted for the bill, said he spent the weekend reading literature on both sides of the argument.

“The people who are asking us to do this today, these are people who can’t play piggyback with their 3-year-old. These are people who get up every day and battle HIV/AIDS. They are people who wonder if their chemotherapy is going to work,” said Baroni. “I can’t look at those folks and let them be perhaps the only ones who don’t have the ability to have less pain.”

A hearing two years ago brought celebrity Montel Williams to the New Jersey Statehouse. A longtime multiple sclerosis sufferer, Williams said he uses marijuana regularly.

The bill next heads to the full Senate for possible consideration. The Assembly held an informational hearing on the proposal last year, but has not scheduled it for a hearing. Similar proposals did not advance during the prior legislative session.

Most of the other states that began allowing medical marijuana have done so through ballot referendums. In New Jersey, the law must be changed by the Legislature.

States where medical marijuana is legal are: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

https://www.courierpostonline.com/article/20081216/NEWS01/812160348/1006/news01