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A former mayor of Philadelphia, who once criticized a plan to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana, is now working with a medical marijuana company looking to open a store on the New Jersey waterfront just across the Delaware River from his hometown.

Former two-term mayor Michael Nutter finally signed a decriminalization bill in 2014 after Jim Kenney, a former councilman and now mayor of Philadelphia, chastised him for months to do so.

Now Nutter has signed on to handle community relations and outreach for Green Leaf Medical New Jersey in its effort to open a cultivation, extraction and dispensary operation on a waterfront property in Gloucester City, just south of Camden.

“I was not opposed to decriminalizing marijuana,” Nutter told NJ Advance Media on Thursday. “The issue I was raising was I wanted us to do more than decriminalizing marijuana. This is medical cannabis, something that is obviously prescribed and it is legally allowed in New Jersey.”

Nutter said he sees his new role as a “senior advisor and consultant” for Green Leaf as falling in line with what led him into public service.

“One of the reasons I got into politics was to help people,” Nutter said. “This is just a different way of being involved.”

Green Leaf, a Maryland-based operation, is one of three companies vying for one available location in Gloucester City. It and the other contenders here are among the applicants competing for the latest round of licenses to be issued by the state Department of Health to expand medical marijuana facilities.

Green Leaf already operates six facilities in four other states. Company CEO Phil Goldberg said adding Nutter to the team for the proposed New Jersey expansion made sense.

“We didn’t just bring him on for the star power,” Goldberg said Thursday. “If you look at his track record, it’s very impressive. He has done some amazing things. His heart is in the right place. If he only had star power we wouldn’t have asked him to join the team.”

Green Leaf wants to build a 50,000 square-foot cultivation, extraction and dispensary facility in the Southport section of the city on the waterfront.

“The city would get 2 percent on the gross sales,” said Howard Long, the Gloucester City solicitor who sat in on planning board meetings about the proposals. “For a city like Gloucester, it’s a nice alternative to raising property taxes. Income is very, very important to the city.”

The two other applicants in Gloucester City are DEVI Holdings LLC and 57 Star LLC.

Bill Duhart may be reached at bduhart@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @bduhart. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips.

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