Bans and Moratoriums

Hey everyone!

One of my first posts was mentioning how municipalities are voting on marijuana industries to be in their cities or towns.  Here is a link to that blog post just in case you missed it: http://regulated-weed-culture.blogspot.com/2018/03/living-near-marijuana-business.html

Let’s review, we know the Cannabis Control Commission is the agency involved with the legalization process and responsible for the guidelines that will regulate all marijuana use/business in the state.  We also know the legalization of marijuana was voted upon by the majority of the state.  However, the location of any type of establishment is decided by each town or city in Massachusetts.  The picture posted above is a map of every city and town in the state, towns are either in grey, red, orange, or blue.  Grey means the town hasn’t decided yet, red is where all retail shops are banned, blue is where retail shops will open, and orange means those towns are in a moratorium state, which means there is a temporary ban but the ultimate decision hasn’t been decided yet.  As you can see most towns are either orange or grey, meaning many local officials don’t know where they will stand on this subject yet. 

So far the CCC has released there are currently 22 medical marijuana dispensaries operating statewide, there have been 81 groups who have completed applications for retail shops in the state, and nearly 450 groups who have started their applications. 

So far twelve towns have agreed to host retail shops, Halifax, Amherst, and Salem to name a few.  My guess would be these are the towns where most of these applications are going to.  Just last week South Shore town, Scituate, announced a ban on any marijuana shops, and they won’t be the last.  Why are so many towns announcing bans on this business?  They simply don’t know what this industry will bring to their town, my guess is most towns in a moratorium state want to see how this plays out in other towns first and then they will base their decision off that.  What does this mean for state revenue?  The Boston Globe predicted marijuana retail sales would bring in about 100 million dollars in revenue in 2019, that number could change with so many municipals coming out against shops.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, stay tuned and thanks for reading!

Picture Source: Patrick Garvin, Boston Globe Staff