The dispensary applicant Nature’s Touch is making progress with a lawsuit alleging corruption in the Hoboken cannabis dispensary process.

Nature’s Touch Med NJ LLC is suing the City and Mayor Ravi Bhalla because they believe he stopped their progress for his own enrichment.

The court recently ruled that the “plaintiff is limited to pursuing one tort claim against the City and Mayor of tortious interference.”

“If plaintiff seeks to pursue any other tort cause of action, it must move to amend its complaint, and the trial court must conduct a hearing to determine if any other tort cause of action can be timely filed…,” they added. “We also point out that plaintiff’s claim is limited to a tort action.”

So, the court said they can’t argue that the City or Mayor acted arbitrarily, capriciously, or unreasonably.

Bhalla has denied the allegations to Hudson County View.

The case has been making its way through the NJ court system after being filed in 2024.

Nature’s Touch Dispensary Lawsuit Case

Nature’s Touch was among the companies that won licenses in the 2019-2021 medical cannabis license lottery.

The town that initially allowed them to operate reneged on their support.

So they applied to open in Hoboken. But they were not allowed to do so despite securing Hoboken Cannabis Review Board (CRB) support in January 2022.

According to the suit, on January 10, 2022, Nature’s Touch learned that Bhalla refused to sign the letter of support, which stopped their progress.

“Mayor Bhalla did not issue a letter explaining his reasons for not issuing a letter of support, and plaintiff claims that at that time it did not know the reason for Mayor Bhalla’s decision,” the court explained.

City Council approval wasn’t required for a medical dispensary to open at the time.

Hoboken Corruption Allegations

At the center of the controversy is former Hoboken Health and Human Services Director Leo Pellegrini. In spring 2024, he alleged there was a corrupt deal between Bhalla and Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop.

The court noted that “according to Pellegrini’s complaint at a January 14, 2022 meeting, Mayor Bhalla stated that he had received a phone call from Mayor Fulop of Jersey City and Mayor Fulop was “extremely upset and very angry” about the Board’s decision to support Nature’s Touch’s application because his wife planned to open a medical cannabis dispensary in the City.”

The suit noted Pellegrini alleged Fulop promised to provide legal work for Bhalla’s law firm with the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency (JCRA) if he opposed Nature’s Touch.

However, Pellegrini was caught embezzling money and sentenced to jail in June 2025.

Dispensary Dealing Claims

It seems Fulop’s wife, Jacklyn, owns a physical therapy business that bought a former tavern in Hoboken. Her company made a deal with the small Multi-State Operator (MSO) Story dispensary for the space.

However, Story, with its expensive lawyers, did negligible community outreach. Nearby homeowners became outraged that a potential dispensary could cause traffic jams. They launched a backlash fueled by old anti-marijuana propaganda.

Career politicians seized on the anti-marijuana backlash and fanned the flames. So, the Hoboken Council and Mayor cooled their initial passion for cannabis dispensaries. They passed an ordinance modifying their initial law. The backlash law hurt the efforts of the local, woman-owned Blue Violets dispensary.

It’s unclear if the backlash motivated Bhalla in January 2022 to oppose Nature’s Touch. In March 2022, the opposition became vocal after Story was approved by the CRB unanimously.

Bhalla and the Hoboken Council ultimately approved Story Dispensary’s application in November 2022 after several meetings lasting until past midnight.

Allegations Denial

In their lawsuit, Nature’s Touch asserted Fulop’s wife is a co-owner of Story Dispensary of Hoboken, LLC.

A statement from Fulop’s Press Secretary said, “No one in Mayor Fulop’s family has ever applied for a cannabis license in Hoboken or anywhere else, making these claims entirely false and undermining any credibility from the start.”

“The tenant who rents space from the building Jaclyn Fulop owns has a lease that is not dependent on any cannabis-related approvals, further discrediting these accusations,” it added.

“Mayor Fulop has never spoken to Mayor Bhalla about this matter. The building location is “by right” under the law. Meaning no special treatment would be needed as alleged,” the statement said.

“These allegations were made by a convicted felon that was targeting Bhalla during Bhalla’s election as retaliation for being terminated,” it also said.

Bhalla ran in the Democratic primary against incumbent Congressman Rob Menendez Jr. (D-NJ-8) in 2024 and lost.

Lawsuit Issues

In their case, Nature’s Touch asserted it was unaware of any basis to contest Bhalla’s decision until May 2024, when Pellegrini made his corruption allegations.

According to the suit, “the record is limited because the parties have not engaged in discovery and there was no evidentiary hearing. Therefore, we accept the facts as alleged by plaintiff but recognize that those facts are vigorously disputed by defendants.”

The defendants assert that Pellegrini is “an aggrieved former employee who voluntarily resigned from his position with the City . . . After it was discovered he engaged in serious acts of misconduct . . . embezzling from the City.”

They have been unsuccessful so far in their attempts to defeat the suit on technical grounds.