Voters will consider a 61-article warrant at Wilbraham’s annual town meeting this evening, including three articles related to recreational marijuana. The meeting starts at 7 p.m. at Minnechaug Regional High School, 621 Main St.
The first article aims to amend town bylaws to ban all types of recreational marijuana establishments, including retail “pot shops,” cultivation and testing facilities, businesses that manufacture pot products, and any other marijuana-related commercial enterprise that isn’t related to medical marijuana, which has been legal in Massachusetts since 2012.
Recreational marijuana is also now legal in Massachusetts, following a statewide ballot vote in December 2016. That’s when 53.6 percent of Bay State voters approved the measure and 46.3 percent rejected it. Over 57 percent of Wilbraham voters rejected the measure, leading to local attempts to prevent the commercial sale or cultivation of the federally proscribed drug within town borders.
Wilbraham voters will get another chance to flex their democratic muscles on this controversial issue at the annual town election on May 20, when a referendum vote will be held on the anti-pot articles.
At a minimum, town officials say, there’s a need for a moratorium on commercial recreational marijuana establishments in Wilbraham, particularly if the two articles or subsequent referendum vote fail to pass.
Officials say the moratorium is needed while the town awaits guidance from the state on the various rules and regulations that will eventually be determined by a Cannabis Control Board. The Wilbraham moratorium would remain in effect through Nov. 30, 2018, or until town zoning bylaws are amended to replace the moratorium with regulations governing the use of such establishments in town.
Wilbraham followed the same process in 2013, when the town enacted a moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries and replaced it with zoning regulations in 2014.
credit:masslive.com
