With new statute allowing delivery to cities and towns without dispensaries, local officials in Needham and Hopkinton vote to extend prohibition
About four-thousand years ago, around 2016, several Massachusetts towns and cities started spasming in horrified anticipation of adult-use dispensaries.
Following the public referendum vote in favor of legalization that November, and the state legislature’s subsequent rewriting of the legalization law passed by the people, municipalities had the choice of “opting out.” Many opted out of having any canna businesses altogether, while a few only barred certain license types. The process by which these bans took effect depended on how the town voted on the 2016 ballot question.
Going by the Cannabis Control Commission’s municipal zoning tracker, which doesn’t account for all the aforementioned micro-variations of opt-out bans, there are currently just over a hundred bans of some kind statewide (out of 351 cities and towns).
One somewhat murky pocket of this realm has been around delivery. While some local select boards and councils approved language that specifically keeps drivers out of “no towns,” others left the door open for doorside dropoffs, whether intentionally or otherwise.
However, the new Act Modernizing the Commonwealth’s Cannabis Laws, signed by Gov. Maura Healey in April, offers clarification. And local bureaucrats from the Berkshires to Barnstable are reacting …
How the new Mass cannabis delivery rules work
According to the CCC’s memo on its role in implementing the changes, among its new mandates is to facilitate “adult-use cannabis delivery to cities and towns that do not otherwise have zoning for Marijuana Establishments.”
An April 19 CCC bulletin provides additional “guidance to municipalities regarding the Act’s provisions on limited delivery of marijuana and marijuana products.” Under the statute:
- Limited delivery is permitted in every municipality in the Commonwealth.
- However, a municipality that does not authorize retail Marijuana Establishment licenses within its borders may request a waiver from the Commission.
- Upon initial request, the Commission must grant the waiver, and the municipality may temporarily prohibit delivery within its jurisdiction.
- The waiver is valid for up to two years and may be extended in two-year increments at the Commission’s discretion.
Municipalities that wish to opt out of limited delivery are instructed to: “Confirm that the municipality does not authorize retail Marijuana Establishments; Prepare and submit a two-year waiver request to the Commission from the chief municipal executive; and Track the two-year waiver period and request extensions as needed.”
Over the past week, those waiver requests have started to process through elected boards across the Bay State.
Local officials vote to ban delivery
In Hopkinton, the Independent newspaper reported that the select board this Tuesday voted 3-0, on the recommendation of the town’s health director, “to request that the town opt out of a new statewide cannabis policy allowing delivery to Massachusetts homes.” Wild claims were made in the process, including that “allowing access to Hopkinton would really take away from the suburban and rural feel in the fabric of what makes Hopkinton what it is today.”
Comparable craziness surfaced in Needham the week prior, with the select board there unanimously voting to ban adult-use delivery. The health director there said “increasing the availability of substances leads to increased uses throughout the community that leads to sort of increased normalization and a reduced perception of risk.” Emphasis on sort of.
Regarding local policy, the Needham Observer reported that “Board member Cathy Dowd referenced Needham’s historical stance on marijuana, with Town Meeting votes in favor of medicinal but against recreational, and zoning bylaws prohibiting recreational cannabis dispensaries in town.”
And in Foxborough, where the World Cup is about to roll through, the matter’s soon to come under consideration. According to aggregated minutes from the April 28 select board meeting there, the body “agreed to place the matter [of potentially seeking a temporary two-year delivery waiver] on a future agenda and may invite the health department.”
To be continued …
