Second-term Mayor Jennifer Macksey brought her slate of changes to cannabis regulations to the North Adams city council meeting last week.
Dan Berger, who is working to open a cannabis business in North Adams and owns another in Salem, spoke about the proposed moves during the open mic portion of the meeting.
“I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this ordinance does not look like it is substantially compliant with new state regulations from the Cannabis Control Commission," he told the council. "I've actually spoken with some of my contacts at the Cannabis Control Commission. A little bit of background about myself, I actually hold a license out in Salem, Massachusetts, and I actually have a host community agreement with the city of North Adams. So, I'm actively working on bringing a business to fruition, and I think that it would behoove the city to maybe refer this to committee and take our time to wrap our heads around the new regulations and make sure everyone gets a fair shot.”
The proposed changes to city law around Licensed Marijuana Establishments include new language to cover cannabis delivery services, limit the number of retail stores to four, clearly define school zones, and outlaw outdoor grow facilities.
“This document is exactly that it's a working draft. I think Mr. Berger said it well when that there is still a lot of work to be done on the document. So, as an administration, we were focused on the new legislation that I believe came out in November, and we've been kind of holding off as we've been hoping to get more information from the Cannabis Control Commission, which is very slow coming out," said Mayor Jennifer Macksey. “We wanted to get the process started in regards to addressing courier and delivery businesses for cannabis, the removal of outdoor grow facilities, better define the number of retail cannabis businesses, as well as attempt to update the language per the new regulations.”
Since Massachusetts legal recreational cannabis sales began in 2019, North Adams has been one of the slower Berkshire County communities to embrace the industry. Its first dispensary opened in 2021, and Macksey took legal action against the opening of an outdoor grow facility in 2022.
“The first ordinance that was passed was a good document, and now that we're ready to take another look at it with the new regulations, this is where I asked my partners in government for help, and this is something that people are knocking on my door almost every day," she said.
Macksey says she hasn’t changed her mind on some aspects of the cannabis world.
“I will just say on the record, I am totally opposed to outdoor grow in a community like ours," she said. "Whether that's indoor or outdoor, I think that gentleman who owns that property isn't planning on putting a grow there, a grow facility at this time. I haven't heard of such. As you all know from my first few months as mayor, I fought very hard with New England Alchemy about the outdoor grow that was sleet stated for Church Street. So, my recommendation is, we do not have any outdoor grow here within our city.”
The mayor underscored that she doesn’t take the industry for granted.
“I just wanted to report, last year, in fiscal year 2023, we took in close to $521,000 in cannabis, between sales tax, impact fees, and that's a lot of money. And most of that came from Clear Sky because Temescal really wasn't up and running quite yet. This year, to date, we've taken in close to $254,000, but we still have to settle out two more quarters of this fiscal year. So it is somewhat of a lucrative business, but I want to make sure we do it right. I specifically don't want a pot shop up on every single corner of our city, but I think if we really work together and spend some time looking at the ordinance, it could be beneficial to us.”
The proposed ordinance changes were sent to the public safety and general government committees with a return date of the council’s first meeting in July.
