EASTHAMPTON — As they move to finalize regulations on recreational marijuana, city councilors heard differing views Monday on steps they need to take to allow social on-site consumption at cannabis cafes and lounges.
Members of the Ordinance Committee were also urged to expand the proposed buffer zones between schools and recreational marijuana shops.
City Planner Jeffrey Bagg, who was recently hired and will join the city next month, told the Ordinance Subcommittee that social consumption, which is currently in the city’s proposed regulations, needs to be approved by a citywide vote.
To make that happen, 10 percent of the voters who cast ballots in the prior state election must sign a petition, according to the state’s recreational marijuana law. In this case, a ballot vote would take place in November.
Not everyone agreed. Northampton attorney Michael Cutler, who helped draft the ballot question to legalize recreational marijuana in the state, said the city does not need a referendum for social consumption.
“The purpose of the initiative was to give the citizens of the town the ability to call a question, to call for the town to enact some local regulations rather than it being a barrier to any town that wanted social consumption,” Cutler said.
Along with social consumption, the city’s proposed regulations state that no more than 12 recreational marijuana retailers are allowed in the city and marijuana establishments must be at least 200 feet from any school or child care center.
The Ordinance Subcommittee will hold a meeting on Feb. 13 to make any changes to the draft regulations, and a joint public hearing with the Planning Board is set for Feb. 20.
The state’s Cannabis Control Commission is required to have regulations in place by March 15.
Public and private school officials in the city on Monday urged councilors to expand the distance cannabis retailers must be sited from schools.
The chief financial officer of Williston Northampton School, Charles McCullagh, said Easthampton should follow the state’s draft regulations that call for retail shops to be at least 500 feet from schools. He added that 12 marijuana retail establishments is a significant number for an industry so new to Easthampton.
He advised the councilors to use caution when developing the regulations.
“If anything is taken to its extreme, it’s always hard to pull back” McCullagh said.
Williston Northampton Head of School Robert Hill III wrote a letter to City Council members last month, urging officials to slow down their momentum on marijuana regulations.
“Twelve dispensaries is a lot of stores for the city’s first step in this direction,” Hill wrote. “Further, a 200-foot buffer between a dispensary and a school is not an adequate distance to shield youth from this product, which can have harmful health effects on the developing brain.”
Superintendent Nancy Follansbee agrees that the distance should be 500 feet from schools.
“If our schools are located in the midst of a number of shops selling cannabis … that may be a perception that’s not a positive one about where schools are and where they want their children to be,” Follansbee said.
While the planned consolidated pre-K through grade 8 school is not in the downtown area, students would still be going to the Center, Pepin and Maple elementary schools near downtown until about 2021 if the project is approved, Follansbee said.
Chairman of the Ordinance Subcommittee Salem Derby said he doesn’t see a need for a larger buffer zone.
“I’ve never seen research that a buffer accomplishes anything,” Derby said, adding the extra distance is just a “feel-good” buffer.
Derby said that package stores selling tobacco and alcohol are close to schools, as are pharmacies where prescription opioids are sold.
Councilor Owen Zaret said cannabis shops will be highly regulated by the state in terms of signage and what can be displayed in the window. He also said that community education about cannabis is important moving forward.
“In any situation, you have the opportunity to be someone who follows or someone who leads,” Zaret said. “I’d say Easthampton has a wonderful opportunity here to be a leader in the commonwealth, to create one of the best ordinances for recreational cannabis that can be an example for the rest of the state.”
Meanwhile, Mayor Nicole LaChapelle announced that Bagg was hired as the new city planner to replace Jessica Allan, who left the post in December after five years. Bagg, who will start March 5, is a project manager for Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Commission and former senior planner of Amherst.