House to take up pot host agreements
Photo | Grant Welker
Worcester's Union Station, home of the state's Cannabis Control Commission
The Massachusetts House appears poised Wednesday to take up legislation giving state cannabis regulators the authority to review and regulate the agreements marijuana businesses are legally required to enter into with their host municipalities.
Marijuana advocates and regulators have been wrestling with the issue of host community agreements, known as HCAs, for more than a year as entrepreneurs, lawyers and lobbyists have shared stories about cities or towns demanding more from businesses than the state's marijuana laws allow. Activists and business owners have pointed to the required agreements as one reason for the slower-than-anticipated rollout of the retail marijuana market and as a barrier that's keeping small businesses from establishing themselves in the new industry.
Second Assistant Majority Leader Rep. Paul Donato said after Monday's session that the host community agreement bill is on the House's agenda for the formal session it has planned for Wednesday.
Legislative clarity on HCAs and enforcement of those agreements could help clear up one of the thorniest issues that has faced regulators as the legal marijuana industry establishes itself in Massachusetts.
Late last month, lawmakers on the Joint Committee on Cannabis Policy advanced a redrafted bill that would give the Cannabis Control Commission express authority to review and regulate the mandatory agreements and payments.
It was not immediately clear whether that redrafted bill, which the House sent to the Committee on Health Care Financing and which the Senate sent to its Ways and Means Committee, is the one the House intends to discuss Wednesday. House Speaker Robert DeLeo's office confirmed Monday that the topic of HCAs will be on Wednesday's agenda, but did not specify a bill number and said the House was waiting for something from its own Ways and Means Committee.
The Committee on Health Care Financing, which has been without a House chairperson since Jennifer Benson resigned her seat in the Legislature last month, was not immediately available to field questions about that committee's plan for the bill. Bill sponsors Rep. David Rogers of Cambridge was not available for comment.
State law requires applicants for marijuana business licenses to enter into a host community agreement before the CCC will consider an application. The law stipulates that those agreements cannot run for more than five years and that the community impact fee paid to the municipality by the licensee cannot exceed 3 percent of the establishment's gross sales.
In addition to having the CCC regulate HCAs, the Cannabis Policy Committee said its bill would allow a municipality to waive the requirement to have an HCA, make clear that an HCA may not require any financial obligations beyond the maximum 3 percent of gross sales fee and clarify that the five-year term of an HCA begins on the day the business opens to customers.
On Monday, an advocacy group that was behind the 2016 ballot initiative that legalized marijuana in Massachusetts sent an organizing email to ask its supporters to call legislative leaders to urge that the HCA bill get votes in both the House and Senate.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments