Five years after voters approved ballot question legalizing recreational marijuana the business is growing like a weed

Opening day was two years and 12 days after residents of Massachusetts voted to legalize the sale of marijuana for recreational use on Nov. 8, 2016.

Eighteen months after those shops opened, Nova Farms, the first cannabis shop in Attleboro, opened its doors on May 25, 2020.

Nova Farms is still the only marijuana shop in Attleboro despite a number of others seeking to locate in the city.

Another may open sometime in the spring and there are others in Plainville, Rehoboth and Mansfield that opened this year.

The ballot question that allowed the legalization of recreational marijuana was passed in a 54 percent to 46 percent vote statewide.

In Attleboro, the numbers were 56 percent “yes,” and 44 percent “no.”

Almost 24 months after the first two retail shops opened, total marijuana sales in the state reached $1 billion on Nov. 3, 2020.

And from Jan. 1 to Nov. 11 of this year, sales totaled another $1.11 billion.

With seven weeks to go in the year, the numbers will go even higher.

Since the opening of the first two retail recreational marijuana shops in November 2018, now nearly three years ago, another 183 shops have received their “final licenses” in the parlance of the Cannabis Control Commission.

And with as many as 185 retail shops now selling marijuana at an average rate of $40 per unit, it’s easy to see why it took less than one year to surpass sales from the previous two.

“Unit” is used as a measure because of the various items sold by the shops, which include flower, edibles, vapor and pre-rolled blunts, to name a few of the products.

Most of the flower products are sold in units 1/8 of an ounce or about 3.5 gram amounts.

But to put things in perspective, while marijuana has become a billion-dollar-a-year business in Massachusetts, which to most of us seems like a lot of money, there are at least 20 other national businesses headquartered here that do much more than that.

For example, according to information found on statista.com, General Electric grossed $79.62 billion all by itself and is at the top of the list in terms of gross revenue for publicly traded companies headquartered in Massachusetts.

Number 20 is Iron Mountain — a data and records management company — at $4.15 billion.

Those 20 are all individual companies selling a variety of products and services while the marijuana businesses are much smaller and independently owned.

The cumulative dollar value of the pot shops is added up by the state every week — and why not, it has a big stake in sales.

There’s 6.25 percent sales tax and a 10.75 percent excise tax, which adds up to a 17 percent take for the state.

For those that are curious, 17 percent of $1 billion is $170 million which is a nice chunk of change to add to the revenue rolls.

In addition, there’s a 3 percent local option tax which goes to the cities and towns hosting the businesses, which brings the taxation total to $200 million per $1 billion.

Of course, it’s the consumer who’s paying all the taxes on top of the cost of whatever marijuana item they buy.

And apparently they are eager to do so.

It’s not likely many consider the taxes when they desire the product.

As with other items like alcohol, cigarettes and gasoline, which are also laden with taxes, the desire for the product, which in the case of gasoline is a daily necessity for most, prompts paying the price no matter what.

The final sales figure for Fiscal Year 2021 was about $1.078 billion according to information on the state’s Cannabis Control Commission‘s website.

And as of June 30, the last day of FY 2021, the state had reaped $176.3 million of the approximately $183.2 million due in the sales and excise taxes, according the annual report of the CCC issued on Oct. 14.

Meanwhile, the Host Community Agreement payments are on the rise with more and more retail shops and other businesses such as cultivation and manufacturing coming on line.

In the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2022 which ended on Sept. 30, local communities were paid $10,278,984.

At that rate, cities and towns will collect $41.1 million in FY 22.

In FY 21 the total was $27.2 million and in FY 20 the total was $14.9 million, according to the state’s Department of Revenue.

The Sun Chronicle requested a community-by-community break down of how much tax money each community received statewide, but DOR said that they don’t release that information due to taxpayer privacy concerns.

The only time they release it is if there are three or more marijuana shops in a city or town.

But local communities like Attleboro do release the information, and Attleboro has reaped a significant amount of cash to date.

Nova Farms was the first recreational pot shop to open in the city.

It’s been open now for almost 18 months and has had the local market pretty much to itself.

Last March, the business made its first Host Community payment to the city in the amount of $585,814.

The agreement calls for payments of 3 percent of gross sales each year for five years.

Mayor Paul Heroux is using that cash to pay for the installation of gunshot detection systems in each of the city’s nine schools.

That cost is expected to be $508,240, which includes a 5 percent contingency amount.

The work is expected to begin this month.

Heroux said the next Community Host Payment will be used to install gun and knife detection systems in city schools.

In addition, the city got two quarterly payments of the 3 percent local option tax, which totaled $967,406 for calendar year 2020, which included only the last seven months of the year.

So far this year, the city has received one quarterly payment of $294,148, according the city’s director of budget and administration Jeremy Stull.

The local option taxes are funneled through the state and then to the city on a quarterly basis.

To date, the local option tax paid to the city is $1,261,554.

That’s a grand total of $1,847,368 that the city has reaped from the single marijuana business within its borders.

It will soon have another.

Aspen Blue Cultures is putting the finishing touches on a new one-story retail shop at 40 Forest St.

Aspen Blue is the parent company. The store itself will be doing business as “Terps.”

Matt Wilkes, chief business officer of Aspen Blue, said the shop is expected to open sometime between February and April.

There are still a number of approvals needed from the state’s Cannabis Control Commission and the opening date depends a lot on when the company gets on the CCC’s agenda, he said.

But whatever the date, the opening is not too far off.

Phase II of the Aspen Blue project involves the construction of a 96,000-square-foot building to be used for growing marijuana and manufacturing marijuana products.

He said the manufacturing and cultivation operation could be up and running sometime in 2023.

There are a number of other marijuana businesses looking to move into Attleboro and some have gotten permits, but progress with them appears to be slow.

Major Bloom, which has permits from the city to open at 20 John Williams St., does not seem to be close.

Emails sent to Ulysses Youngblood, president of the company, and Laury Lucien, chief executive officer, requesting comment on the company’s progress were not answered.

Ashley Irving, owner of Ashli’s, a retail shop; Ashli’s Farm, a cultivation operation; and Ashli’s Extract, a manufacturing facility, also did not respond to requests for comment on the progress of her companies which are to be located at 70 and 76 Frank Mossberg Drive.

The Sun Chronicle did not get responses from the owners of Beacon Compassion Center who hope to run a cultivation operation at 30 Franklin McKay Drive or Brierleaf, which hopes run a cultivation facility at 527 Pleasant St.

So as it stands now at least one more retail shop will open within the next six months, or so, if all goes as planned.

Other shops have opened this year in nearby communities including Rehoboth, Mansfield and Plainville.

In Rehoboth, CommCan Inc. had a soft opening at 150 Barney Ave. on Oct. 23 and had its grand opening just last week, on Nov. 7.

Interim Town Administrator Deborah Arruda said CommCan has paid a $25,000 “commencement payment.”

The business has not been open long enough for its Host Community Agreement or tax payments to kick in.

Arruda said the town does not have any specific plans for that cash “at this time.”

Assistant Town Manager and Finance Director Barry LaCasse said no payments have been made to the town as yet since the shop opened just a short time ago.

Like Rehoboth, there are no specific plans for that cash for the moment.

“For now it will go into the general fund,” LaCasse said.

Town Administrator Brian Noble said Plainville has received $156,708 in Host Community money so far.

In addition, it’s gotten another $103,509 in tax money.

He said the cash goes into the general fund and supports both town and school budgets.

When plans were first being laid to deal with marijuana businesses there were concerns, especially by local police chiefs, about potential criminal activity.

In 2016, Attleboro Police Chief Kyle Heagney, along with the Mansfield and Norton police chiefs, expressed concerns about legalizing marijuana.

In a column published in The Sun Chronicle, Heagney, Norton Police Chief Brian Clark and Mansfield Police Chief Ronald Sellon, wrote of their concern with the legalization of recreational marijuana and pointed to Colorado and Washington as “cautionary tales” because of vehicle accidents that increased after marijuana was made legal in those states.

“The legalization of marijuana would have a detrimental effect upon our health, safety and, especially, our children,” they wrote at the time.

Heagney, at the time, also said he did not believe legalization of the drug would eliminate the sometimes violent crimes associated with it like robbery, assault and sometimes even murder. He also accused the mayor and city councilors of “selling their souls to the devil” for cash that the marijuana stores would bring into the city coffers.

What a difference a few years makes. Now, his opinion of legalization has apparently changed.

Heagney said there have been no major incidents at Nova Farms.

Occasionally there are minor issues, he said.

“From time to time, there is a call for service for an unruly customer or an underage person attempting to purchase marijuana,” Heagney said.

But, he said, security procedures have stemmed serious matters so far.

“We have not experienced a major crime at this location,” he said. “The facility security systems and protocols appear to alleviate the potential major crime incidents.”

But that’s not to say there haven’t been some problems.

“The biggest problem we have with the marijuana facility is parking and traffic,” Heagney told The Sun Chronicle in an emailed statement. “The employee parking has become an issue since the facility began expanding from simply retail to include manufacturing and growing.”

It’s not a constant problem and it is ameliorated to some degree by the location of the shop in an industrial zone which is required by city ordinances.

“Traffic congestion ebbs and flows … the facility’s location helps alleviate most traffic congestion because it is situated in the Industrial Park,” he said. “If this facility was located in downtown Attleboro, it would be a major traffic bottleneck problem.”

He praised Nova Farms officials for their assistance with the problems that do arise.

“The facility management has been cooperative and helpful in trying to mitigate these issues,” he said.

The police chiefs in the other three towns where retail shops are located did not respond to a request for comment.