MA: Town Meeting To Settle Issue Of Marijuana Ban

Ron Strider

Well-Known Member
State legislators, apparently attempting this summer to make it easier for community leaders to prevent marijuana stores from opening within their borders, may have actually established a system whereby cities enjoy an easier path to a ban than small towns like Stoneham.

On Monday night, during the course of a public hearing convened to consider citizens' viewpoints on retail pot establishments, Selectmen Chair George Seibold announced a shocking development in the months-long saga: He and his elected peers still cannot enact a pot sales prohibition.

Instead, according to an interpretation of state regulations by Attorney General Maura Healey's office, the matter must be decided at a future Town Meeting, where citizens must pass a zoning article with a two-thirds majority.

By contrast, in neighboring Woburn, where a city-form of government exists, the City Council of that community just recently banned retail marijuana sales through a simple majority vote of the aldermen.

"We literally just found that out in an email from [Robert] Galvin, our town counsel...As a board, we haven't had a chance to discuss this at all," explained Seibold.

Though town officials have called a Special Town Meeting for Oct. 2016, as is customary in Stoneham, it is too late to add the marijuana question onto the warrant for that assembly. Given the late breaking nature of the news, the Board of Selectmen has not yet decided how to proceed on the issue.

At issue is the language of an amendment made this summer to the state's recreational marijuana laws as they relate to retail pot sales, which will begin in July of 2018. No alterations have been made to laws governing recreational pot use, which is presently legal for all persons over 21.

Prior to that legislation being signed into law by Governor Charles Baker, all communities had to go to the ballot box in order to impose a sales ban.

As was widely reported after the marijuana law changes became effective, the language regarding opt-outs essentially sought to strike a balance between local officials worried about the implications of retail sales and respecting the wishes of voters in cities and towns that passed the 2016 ballot question.

To accomplish that feat, state legislators required that in communities where citizens passed the state ballot question, municipal officials will still have to ask voters to okay the imposition of a retail sales ban.

However, for those cities and towns that rejected the state referendum question, the acting legislative body could unilaterally implement a blanket prohibition on retail sales.

In the wake of the law changes, Selectman Caroline Colarusso, who has since last May been urging her peers to take action to ban retail sales in Stoneham, called upon her peers earlier this month to take such a vote.

Monday night's public forum, organized just days earlier, was intended to give citizens a chance to voice their position, before the selectmen rendered their final decision on the issue.

However, well into that public gathering, town attorney Barbara Carbone explained Town Meeting must approve a retail sales restriction through a zoning amendment, which will require a two-thirds vote.

"It's not the selectmen who will be voting yay or nay. It's a town meeting vote. The attorney general's office recommendation is this would be best regulated under a zoning [change], so that's how it would come to voters," said Carbone.

During a phone interview on Wednesday morning, Colarusso vented her frustration with the entire situation, especially since the requirement in essence makes it more difficult to pass a ban than in communities that actually voted in favor of the state ballot question last fall.

For example, in Melrose, where voters supported the state referendum, though city officials can only impose a blanket prohibition on retail sales through a ballot question, the issue is still decided by a simple majority.

By contrast, in Stoneham, where special interests have in the past crowded into Town Hall to pass a single warrant article, a higher bar is set with the two-thirds majority rule governing zoning measures.

"The zoning bylaw option presents a potential problem since zoning changes require a two-thirds vote...which would allow a minority of those who attend Town Meeting to frustrate the will of most Stoneham residents who voted in the presidential election last November against commercial sales of marijuana," she said.

"I am also concerned that the longer the town delays in imposing a ban, the more time that commercial interests and lobbyists who favor marijuana sales will have to generate opposition to the ban," Colarusso furthered. "In this matter it appears that the road paved to banning marijuana is easier traveled by a city than it is for a town like Stoneham."

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