Fredonia Police Chief Phillip Maslak firmly supports a village opt-out of marijuana sales.

“It’s my opinion that we opt out and sit back and look at how all of the marijuana legalization — the selling, the retail stores, on site consumption — plays out,” Maslak told the Fredonia Board of Trustees during a presentation at a Monday workshop meeting.

“So what New York State is doing, is they’ve set up a firm date of Dec. 31 for you to either opt out or to do nothing, which means by doing nothing, you opt in and you’re tied to it for life,” he added.

Maslak suggested village officials could revisit marijuana sales a year from now, as “there is no rush to get into this.”

The chief continued, “We’re in a unique situation here with the village because we are a smaller community but we do have an influx of college students… the campus, to the best of my belief, is a non smoking campus, which means there’s no smoking of cigarettes and/or marijuana on the campus. That, in turn, puts all of that within our village, at the local apartments where college students reside.”

Because of that, Maslak said, it would be a good idea if the village passed an open smoking law mirroring the open container law for alcohol. “I feel this would be a good fit, especially for our playgrounds and our local parks… I’d like to see them no smoking, which would include the marijuana stipulation in there,” he said.

Mayor Doug Essek, a professed skeptic of marijuana legalization, said that unless the village opts out of sales now, it is “locked in forever without any alternatives.” Trustee EvaDawn Bashaw said that it was important for village officials to realize that, conversely, opting out for now does not mean the village will have to keep marijuana sales out forever.

Maslak said he and the SUNY Fredonia police chief will sit in on a September forum to be led by Susan Parker, who recently won the Democratic primary to represent Fredonia in the county legislature, on local laws and marijuana legalization. “We have all been invited to that and I think just for information only it may be a good forum for us to attend,” Bashaw said.

“We should make the laws reflect the same as all other legal drugs as far as bars and cigarettes go,” she continued. “You can’t drink on the streets in public … and you can’t smoke in public in many places, and I think we should look at ordinances that require the same.

“Whether we like it or not, the legalization of marijuana is here and it will fall into the same category as tobacco and alcohol and I think we should treat it in the same matter,” Bashaw concluded.

“The main thing is, we should get in front of this and talk about coming up with a resolution to opt out,” Maslak said. There was no action taken on that Monday, however.