Efforts to bring retail marijuana stores to the largest city in western Massachusetts are accelerating.
Springfield City Council President Orlando Ramos Friday appointed a new Subcommittee on Adult-use Marijuana and announced a timetable to put zoning and permitting regulations for pot stores on the books by the end of September.
"If all goes as planned, then there will not be a need to extend the moratorium that is in place," said Ramos.
The City Council approved a six-month moratorium on retail pot stores to give officials time to come up with zoning regulations and other local permitting requirements. It expires at the end of September.
Massachusetts has had a slow rollout to recreational marijuana after voters legalized it in 2016. The state’s Cannabis Control Commission recently issued a number of provisional retail licenses. But it has yet to license a laboratory to test marijuana before it can be legally sold in the state.
