Sheridan Town Supervisor John Walker. Submitted photo

SHERIDAN — Resident Susan Bigler’s effort to bring a townwide referendum to allow cannabis dispensaries and smoking dens took another step forward. During this month’s Town Board meeting, Bigler’s petition to get the law on the ballot was seemingly verified.

“I went through all the signatures and compared everyone to the registered voters of the town,” said Sheridan town Clerk Rebecca Shafer. “I only found two who weren’t registered voters.”

Bigler needed 10 percent of the last election’s voter turnout in the town for her petition. Of the 1,119 voters, Bigler ended up with 127 signatures. Shafer said she could verify all but two of the signatures on the petition, which still gives Bigler’s petition enough signatures. From here, Shafer said the next step is to sit down with town attorney Jeff Passafaro to iron out the wording before it is sent to the county to hit the ballot.

Bigler did this to ensure that the most people as possible were able to have a say in if dispensaries and smoking dens were allowed. She went door to door looking for signatures, and got a sample of people who live directly in town, on the outskirts, Republicans, Democrats, to try and get the most amount of reach possible.

“It’s an exercise in democracy,” said Bigler. “When there’s an issue that’s big enough to affect people in town, they’d like to have a vote on it. … I thought I’d do it as an experiment to see how people in town felt about it and see how many knew what was going on.”

Sheridan town Supervisor John Walker anticipated the petition being accepted, and agreed with Bigler that this process is an exercise in democracy. At the end of the day, Walker said the mass of people will get to decide what is best.

“I don’t know the whole read of the whole town,” said Walker. “She’s talked to some in favor and I’ve talked to some who aren’t. I guess it boils down to the people having to figure out if the Town Board made the right decision.”

The next Town Board meeting will be on Wednesday, April 13 at the Sheridan Town Hall.