MANSFIELD — A dispute over a retail recreational marijuana business proposed on West Street will be heard by the state’s Supreme Judicial Court.
The SJC is scheduled to hear arguments Feb. 3.
The town appealed a Land Court ruling last April that allowed CommCan to locate a retail recreational marijuana business on vacant land at 611 West St. in the Cabot Business Park.
In 2016, the town and state Cannabis Control Commission granted CommCan a special permit and provisional license to operate a medicinal marijuana business on the land.
The company later sought to also offer recreation sales after town meeting amended its bylaws in 2018 to allow such sales in a special zoning district off School Street.
The town balked at doing so and CommCan filed suit in Land Court.
In her brief, Kimberly Saillant of Boston, the lawyer for the town, argued that the Land Court erred when it ruled in favor of CommCan.
“The host community agreement entered into by the town and CommCan was for medical marijuana only, it was not for the sale or distribution of recreational marijuana and/or recreational marijuana products,” she wrote.
Saillant also argued that the location is not zoned for recreational marijuana sales.
In his brief, Jason Talerman of Millis, the lawyer for CommCan and its president, Ellen Rosenfeld, argued that the Land Court made the proper ruling.
Under the law, Talerman said the town’s zoning bylaw cannot operate to prevent the conversion of medical marijuana dispensaries registered before the change in the law to also offer recreational marijuana sales.
The town contended CommCan didn’t have “grandfather rights” and wasn’t “engaged” in the medical marijuana business because it never built a building or sold marijuana.
However, Rosenfeld had argued her efforts to obtain construction financing were stymied when an abutter appealed the decision by the planning board to allow CommCan to dispense medical marijuana.
A Bristol County superior court ruled in favor of CommCan, which the abutter then appealed to the state Appeals Court.
The SJC took the case on its own from that Court.
Two friend-of-the-court briefs were filed, including one by Valerio Romany who co-wrote the 2016 ballot initiative to legalize marijuana, in favor of CommCan.
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