The City Council doubled down on its temporary ban on recreational marijuana facilities Monday night, approving a change to the municipal code that effectively prevents those establishments from opening up shop in Methuen indefinitely.
While several councilors said they were upholding the wishes of the slim majority of Methuen residents who voted against legalizing recreational marijuana last November, the council’s decision on the municipal code change was not unanimous. Nor did the measure pass without councilors acknowledging that a future iteration of the City Council – for instance, the one being elected in less than two months – could revisit the matter and amend it.
At-large Councilor Jennifer Kannan – echoing the sentiments of the handful of Methuen residents and business owners who spoke against the ban prior to the vote – questioned why the council couldn’t just stick with the temporary moratorium it approved earlier in September.
That moratorium, a zoning bylaw amendment, effectively blocks the retail sale of recreational marijuana by restricting the use of “land or structures” for dispensing, processing or cultivating the drug. The restriction lasts through either Nov. 1, 2018, or for six months after the effective date of the state’s Cannabis Control Commission regulations, whichever is greater.
The municipal code amendment, on the other hand, is a more permanent solution. The change adds a new section that prohibits “all types of non-medical ‘marijuana establishments’” including marijuana cultivators, independent testing laboratories, marijuana product manufacturers, marijuana retailers or any other licensed marijuana-related business, from opening up shop in Methuen.
Kannan advocated for letting the temporary moratorium remain in place while the city and state continue to iron out regulations for recreational pot sales, and to leave the ultimate decision up to the next council – one that will have at least six new members due to term limits and one councilor, James Jajuga, running for mayor.
“Maybe we jumped out of the gate too fast, we have a moratorium,” she said, adding that it didn’t make sense “to be redundant,” with the bans and “have a prohibition that can be overturned by the next council.”
But the majority of councilors appeared to disagree. Jajuga said that voting for the ban on establishments “would not preclude us in the future from taking another look at this, if in fact there was a determination that it might be in our best interest.” In the meantime, he said, it was in the city’s best interest to ban them.
East District Councilor Ronald Marsan, who had pushed for the bans on recreational establishments, said that he was simply doing what he was elected to do.
“We’re here to represent the citizens of Methuen,” Marsan said. “They voted against recreational marijuana.”
He also reiterated that the state had given cities and towns who voted against the ballot question to legalize marijuana the ability to prohibit or restrict marijuana facilities through their legislative bodies – without having to put the question back to residents through a ballot referendum.
Ultimately, after a failed attempted to table the matter to a future meeting, the council voted 6-3 in favor of amending the municipal code to ban recreational marijuana establishments. Kannan, Central District Councilor Lisa Yarid Ferry and West District Councilor Lynn Vidler, who is also running for re-election, voted against it.
Natasha Young, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who was twice deployed to Iraq, told councilors “it should be the individual’s right to choose the course of action for themselves,” when it comes to buying or using marijuana.
“If I consume edibles at night because that’s what works for me, that should be my choice. That’s the freedom I fought for,” she said, adding that they help with her migraines.
Kirby Mastrangelo of North Andover, who owns Humble Bumble in Methuen – a shop that sells legal hemp products – told councilors that 416 people had signed a petition saying they did not support banning recreational pot shops in the city.
“I’m disappointed,” she said of the council’s vote, and added that she would consider bringing the fight back again once the new council is in place.
Jahan Saffari, a Methuen native who recently moved back to the city after living in San Diego for more than a decade, said there were plenty of ways Methuen could have utilized the tax revenue from the recreational marijuana establishments to help better the city, from bolstering the police and fire departments to creating youth drug awareness programs.
While two types of bans are now in play in Methuen, another effort to block recreational marijuana facilities, which would have been accomplished by amending the city’s Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance to prohibit the establishments in “all zoning districts of the city,” was withdrawn by Marsan ahead of Monday night’s meeting. That type of restriction would have had to go through a public hearing prior to a council vote.
credit:420intel.com