WESTFIELD – The Planning Board voted earlier this week to submit two proposed medical marijuana ordinances to the City Council for its review and action as the June 1, 2014 moratorium deadline approaches.
The City Council will adopt some form of the two proposed ordinances the city will eventually use to control medical marijuana facilities in the city and ensure that those facilities comply with state law and standards.
The Planning Board began its review earlier this month with the zoning ordinance, which will replace the existing ordinance, Section 4-90 which now prohibits the sale of drug paraphernalia. The revised ordinance has definitions, regulated zoning for dispensaries and marijuana processing facilities, as well as other requirements and provisions.
The proposed zoning ordinance would limit dispensaries to the Industrial Zone through site approval processes and in Business B districts by special permit.
The board members made several changes Tuesday night to the draft legislation, putting both the site plan approval and special permit review under the Planning Board. The original draft has the site plan approval under the Planning Board and Special Permit review under the City Council.
The site plan process would require applicants to “provide adequate and appropriate security measures” and that projects be “designed to minimize any adverse or inconsistent visual or olfactory impacts on the immediate neighborhood” and that applicants are “reasonable capable of meeting all applicable regulations and permitting requirements of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”
The special permit process requires applicants to show that a “project is compatible with, and will not have adverse economic effect on surrounding areas, as well as meeting the standards of the site plan process.”
The board also increased the buffer between dispensaries and schools, playgrounds, pre-school and day-care facilities or places where children congregate. The draft buffer was set at 300 feet, but the board increased that buffer to 500 feet Tuesday.
The proposed ordinance now reads:
“The secured limits of a proposed Marijuana Dispensary or Marijuana Processing Operation shall not be located within 500 feet of a facility used, at the time of the first notice of public hearing, for an elementary, middle or high school, or for a playground, pre-school, child day care center or other location intended principally as a place for on-site services for children, or wherein children commonly congregate in a formal, structured or scheduled manner; nor, unless an additional Special Permit so specifically authorizes, within 300 feet of any residential dwelling unit, transient-type housing structure or structure used for religious worship .”
City Planner Jay Vinskey, who was a member of the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission workgroup which adopted a boilerplate draft of the ordinance for cities and towns to adapt to their specific needs, said the 300-foot buffer “is a starting point based on the model ordinance.”
“We’re defining a new use. We’re creating a new category of use with a lot of safeguards,” Vinskey said.
Those safeguards will echo state regulations, as well as address local issues and concerns. The state requires dispensaries and processing facilities to keep detailed records, including disposal of waste material.
The zoning ordinance will be referred back by the City Council to the Planning Board which will initiate the public review of the proposed ordinance language at a public hearing. Following that public hearing, the zoning ordinance, with any amendments, will be go back to the City Council for final action.
Under the provisions of that ordinance dispensaries are prohibited from selling lottery tickets, tobacco or nicotine delivery products, may not contain an office of a physician or other professional practitioner who proscribes or certifies the use of medical marijuana. Hours of operation of a dispensary are restricted from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.
The board also voted to send the City Council a recommendation for the city’s general ordinance under Article VII of Chapter 8, Health and Environmental Regulations. Article VII is titled the “Controlled Substance & Medical Marijuana.”
The general ordinance reflects state law under Chapter 369 of the Acts of 2012 of the Commonwealth and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, 105 Commonwealth of Massachusetts Regulation (CMR) 725.000 which authorizes the city’s Board of Health to “promulgate any additional rule or regulation concerning the administration of this ordinance.”
The board members discussed the role of both the Health and Police departments to ensure the health and safety of the public in relation to marijuana facilities. The board also recommended that the city adopt language requiring an annual licensing fee of $15,000 for that health and police enforcement.
State Law authorizes the local Board of Health to set that annual fee following a public hearing on the issue.
The two ordinance proposals will go the City Council at its Feb. 6, 2014 session.
