PEPPERELL – An extensive back-and-forth between local residents at Town Meeting last Saturday derailed a proposed marijuana retail business.
Town Meeting was held in the Nissitissit Middle School parking lot to vote on a zoning bylaw amendment that would allow the number of adult-use recreational marijuana establishments in town to increase from one to two.
At the end of the over two-hour meeting, residents voted 112-62 on the amendment which, though containing more votes in-favor than against, missed the two-thirds majority vote needed to officially approve the amendment.
Current town law dictates that the Planning Board is the authority to issue a special permit to the marijuana establishment, allowing it to go forward with construction.
Uma Flowers LLC received that special permit on Dec. 21 last year after first pitching a store located at 2 Tarbell St. to the Select Board in December 2019.
However, New England Craft Cultivators were also in the process of acquiring a special permit to open its own retail marijuana business at 112-114 Main St. in Paugus Plaza.
Town Administrator Andrew MacLean said on Monday that 179 people attended Saturday’s meeting and the amendment needed 116 votes to reach the two-thirds majority.
MacLean said he expected the amendment to be approved and didn’t sense any negativity towards the amendment until reading social media posts regarding the proposal last week. Still, he found the points brought up by residents at the meeting balanced between those for and against the amendment.
“I felt that the public was evenly split,” MacLean said. “Some people said we should have more business competition in town while others said, ‘Well let’s see how the one shop turns out first before we do two.’ There was not a lot of animosity in the discussions. Given the challenges that we faced with an outdoor meeting, I think it went really well.”
Select Board member Margaret Scarsdale said she expected the vote for the amendment to be close but was surprised that it didn’t hit the majority vote. She also noted the split opinions amongst the public at the meeting, with those in favor citing how the businesses could bring in much-needed revenue for the town while those against stressing the uncertainty of welcoming such a new business venture tied to a formerly-illicit substance into town.
“I get that some people are morally and socially opposed to this, but I thought thus could spur some economic development,” Scarsdale said. “We worked on this for two years, we had addressed parking concerns, security concerns and impacts to the community.”
Wes Ritchie, co-founder and co-CEO of New England Craft Cultivators, said on Monday that he was “disappointed” with the overall outcome of the meeting but was “encouraged” by the amount of support the amendment got.
“There was clearly a majority of support for this, the town clearly wants two stores,” Ritchie added. “No store or applicant has done more community outreach than we have.”
Planning Board Advisor Lisa Davis said that the board is unable to grant a special permit to NECC without the bylaw amended. As far as the future, Davis said the board has until mid-May to make any further decision on NECC. After that, the board will either deny NECC’s application or NECC can withdraw.
Ritchie said that NECC still hopes to open a facility in Pepperell and plan to work with town officials to draft a resolution keeping the business in the town picture.
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