Worcester County still has most recreational pot applications
Photo | Matt Wright
Marijuana plants growing at Sira Naturals' Milford facility.
There are now 22 adult-use cannabis business applications in Worcester County, and the Cannabis Control Commission is slowly but surely approving new Central Massachusetts companies’ entrances into the industry.
Any actual sales, however, will still have to wait, as the state’s adult-use cannabis regulators have yet to approve any testing facilities, a critical piece of the supply chain required before anything can be sold.
Officials were hopeful that a cannabis testing lab would be taken up at Thursday’s meeting, but those will have to wait until at least the commission’s next meeting on Aug. 9.
The CCC did, however, approve several licenses for two companies.
New England Treatment Access, which grows medical marijuana in Franklin, got four licences: cultivation, product manufacturing and two retail licenses. The cultivation and manufacturing will take place in the company’s 76,000-square-foot Franklin facility, but the company’s retail stores are located in Northampton and Brookline.
Salem grower Alternative Therapy Group was also licensed for cultivation and manufacturing in Salem and a retail shop in Amesbury.
Worcester County with 22 full applications is the busiest area of the state for the industry so far. Only Middlesex, Plymouth and Berkshire counties have more than eight completed applications.
Commissioners issued guidance on host community agreements as some municipalities have secured agreements with cannabis companies for contributions above the 3-percent identified in state law.
Commissioner Britte McBride led the CCC's work to develop the municipal guidance it approved Thursday. She said the CCC hopes to help clear up what is considered reasonably related in a host community agreement.
"The guidance we are going to issue ... states that the commission views fees that are reasonably related as those that compensate a municipality for its actual and anticipated expenses resulting from the operation of the marijuana establishment," she said. "There needs to be a reasonable relation, the fee cannot merely be a fee without designation of its origins or justification of its amount."
Advocates, including the Yes on 4 campaign behind the 2016 ballot initiative, has placed much of the blame for the slow rollout of the recreational industry on municipalities for a lack of urgency in zoning for marijuana businesses and agreeing to host community agreements.
The agreements are required before seeking a license from the Cannabis Control Commission.
Information from the State House News Service was used in this report.
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