SAUGUS — Town Meeting members will be asked to support a bylaw amendment that would ban the retail sale of marijuana across town.
“We are one of the communities that did not support recreational marijuana and retail marijuana (on the ballot),” said Town Manager Scott Crabtree. “This will deal with that issue and allow Town Meeting to decide if they want to support this as the public supported it on the ballot.”
Specifically, Article 14 asks voters to amend the town’s zoning bylaws to include a definition for marijuana establishment. As proposed, it is defined as “a commercial marijuana cultivator, marijuana testing facility, marijuana product manufacturer, marijuana retailer, or any other type of marijuana-related business.”
The regulations would be amended to prohibit a marijuana establishment in all zoning districts of the town. The article clarifies that a registered medical marijuana dispensary is not considered a marijuana establishment. The prohibition would not apply to the sale, distribution, or cultivation of marijuana for medical purposes.
“This is the mechanism that has been put in place by the state legislature to allow a town to opt out of having retail (marijuana facilities),” said Crabtree. “This is separate and distinct from medical marijuana.”
In January 2016, Christopher Edwards, executive director of Alternative Therapies Group, petitioned the Board of Selectmen for a letter stating it was not opposed to the possibility of a medical marijuana dispensary on a parcel of land at the end of Osprey Road. Alternative Therapies Group is a medical marijuana store in Salem.
Selectmen sought opinions from residents and those doing business in town in a public meeting. Several concerned citizens attended the meeting, many of whom spoke in opposition to the facility being constructed at the location, while others took the opportunity to share what they thought the facility could bring to the town.
The selectmen ultimately denied the request, but clarified that did not mean it would not be revisited in the future. At the time, their main concerns revolved around how things would change with the possibility of the legalization of recreational marijuana, which became legal at the end of that year.
