Attorney General Maura Healey has rejected Rochester’s attempt to extend its temporary moratorium on adult-use cannabis; as a result, the AG’s Office says Rochester’s moratorium has expired and thus Rochester must immediately begin accepting applications for adult-use cannabis businesses.
Rochester Town Meeting in May voted to adopt an article extending the temporary moratorium past its October 31, 2018 expiration until June 30, 2019.
Healey had expressed in prior responses to other municipalities’ marijuana moratorium extensions that it would not honor moratoria beyond the December 31, 2018 date, saying that the time provided to municipalities in the Commonwealth was sufficient, which was stated in the AG’s response to the Town of Egremont’s adopted bylaw.
Planning Board Chairman Arnie Johnson acknowledged in a follow-up back in May that the Commonwealth would likely reject the moratorium extension, saying, “We’ll give it a shot.”
The Town’s original Temporary Moratorium on Marijuana Retail Sale Bylaw states that, during the moratorium period, “the Town shall undertake a planning process to address the potential impacts of recreational marijuana in the Town, consider the regulations of the Cannabis Control Commission regarding recreational Marijuana and related uses, and shall consider adopting new Zoning Bylaws to address the impact and operation of Marijuana Retail Sale.”
However, since the original temporary moratorium was adopted at the May 22, 2017 Annual Town Meeting until the Town Meeting vote to extend the moratorium on May 21, 2018 one year later, the Town has not presented an appropriate zoning bylaw to regulate the siting of adult-use cannabis in Rochester.
In the December 3 letter to the Town, Healey wrote, “Because the final version of the Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) regulations … were filed with the Secretary of State on March 9, 2018, it was reasonable in May 2017 for the Town to adopt a moratorium for a limited period of time to study the CCC regulations and develop zoning and other by-laws in light of the regulations. However, the Town has not provided, and we cannot discern, a legitimate zoning purpose for now extending the moratorium from October 31, 2018 to June 30, 2019.” It further states, “[T]he ‘contingency’ of no fall 2018 special town meeting does not appear to be a legitimate zoning purpose for the extension because the Board of Selectmen is empowered by statute to call a special town meeting at any time.”
“We just lost track of time, to be honest,” Planning Board Chairman Arnie Johnson said during a follow-up on December 13. After he read Healey’s letter rejecting Rochester’s moratorium extension, Johnson said he crumpled it up and threw it away in anger.
Having said that, though, Johnson summarized town counsel’s consolation on the matter, saying that the process an applicant must undergo in order to acquire an adult-use cannabis license is rigorous and relatively lengthy.
“And there hasn’t been anyone that has filed yet,” Johnson said. Town counsel has been checking and no one has filed for any permit in Rochester, so he feels pretty confident that, by the time they file and go through the state process and they approve it, that we would be close to Town Meeting (with a cannabis zoning bylaw) where the rejection of the extension of the moratorium becomes a moot point.”
Johnson pointed out that once the town clerk files the new bylaw with the AG’s Office within 30 days of Town Meeting adjournment, the AG’s Municipal Law Unit then has 90 days to issue a rejection or acceptance. The Town did not receive a response until December 3.
“Itwent way past the 90 days,” Johnson said. “Had they denied it right away perhaps we might have had to deal with [an adult-use cannabis operation] coming into town in a slightly unregulated way. We already had a rough draft, so we’re not too far off base on it.We haven’t taken [the bylaw draft] up as a board, but we will. In January, we’re going to start that process.We’re going to probably end up creating an overlay district.
“Them denying it at this point really doesn’t matter,” said Johnson. Still, Johnson continued, “We probably would’ve had the [cannabis bylaw] done, but this Green Communities thing kind of got thrown on our plate unexpectedly, so that took up a lot of our time. We’ve also got a lot of solar coming back in town that’s probably going to file in the end of January/February, so we’re going to get real busy real quick.”
In addition to Rochester’s moratorium extension, Healey also rejected similar extension attempts for Natick and Plympton.
By Jean Perry