Saugus board aims for pot moratorium

SAUGUS – Selectmen have voted to hold a special Town Meeting next month with the single goal of calling for a moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries.”The Attorney General’s office ruled that you cannot keep them out of a community, but you can do a temporary moratorium,” said Saugus Town Planner Robert Luongo. “But it cannot go past 2014.”The special Town Meeting will be held Tuesday, Oct. 15 at 7:30 p.m. in Town Hall auditorium.Luongo told the board Tuesday that 18 applications have been filed with the state seeking to open marijuana dispensaries in Essex County. Of those 18, three failed to list specific locations, which means they could seek to open in Saugus, he said.He suggested the board call a special Town Meeting to pass the moratorium to give the community time to establish a solid bylaw concerning where and how the dispensaries would be allowed in town.The board voted unanimously to hold the meeting with the sole article asking meeting members to put a moratorium in place until Dec. 30, 2014.Luongo said where a dispensary is placed will affect land use, but he also reminded board members that such facilities do benefit a certain population. The key, he said, is to create a bylaw that is fair and will assure potential neighbors that such a store won’t hurt them.Selectman Stephen Horlick said he envisioned a bylaw similar to liquor licenses, which prohibit the sale within so many feet of a school or church.Town Manager Scott Crabtree said it would more likely reflect the town’s adult entertainment bylaw.”It’s different or a little unique in that it’s being approved by the state,” Crabtree said referring to the applications to open a dispensary. “It’s different than the way we deal with entertainment licenses or liquor licenses where the town has approval rights. With this we’re a little out of the loop.”Luongo said that is true but communities have the power to add layers of regulations on top of the state regulation as long as it doesn’t outright prohibit dispensaries from opening.Planning Board and Town Meeting member Peter Rossetti said his only concern is that Town Meeting might be too late. The state has yet to set a time limit for communities to adopt the moratorium and there is chance it could do so prior to the date of Town Meeting, he said.The Planning Board is scheduled to meet Oct. 10 to make a recommendation on the proposed moratorium.”We’ll have our hearing before Town Meeting and hope the state hasn’t made a decision,” he said. “The timing on all this is not ideal to say the least.”