Pittsfield Dispensary Applicant Clears Final Local Hurdle

Total Health and Wellness has passed all local permitting to establish a medical marijuana dispensary on Dalton Avenue but needs a state license to move forward.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — With the final decision from the state less than a week away, one "registered marijuana dispensary" applicant has now cleared the final local hurdle to establishing the county's first medicinal cannabis health service.

Pittsfield's Conservation Commission on Thursday approved the final step in local permitting for Total Health and Wellness, which hopes to open the city's first RMD facility in a commercial section of Dalton Avenue if granted licensure by the Massachusetts Department of Health next week. The board voted unanimously to endorse the nonprofit's request to reconstruct an existing parking lot at the site.

The lot at 531 Dalton Ave., formerly the location of County-Wide Rentals, lies within the flood plain of the Unkamet Brook, but the city found no issue with the proposed parking lot overhaul as presented by James Scalise of SK Design on Thursday.

"What we're proposing to is to take about 1,270 square feet of existing parking area and convert it from a hard gravel blacktop surface to lawn and landscape cover," Scalise told the commission.

Conservation officer Rob Van der Kar said the plans put forth comply with all relevant environmental and waterfront regulations.

"The only concerns from the public came in regard to PCBs," said Van der Kar, noting that the toxic polychlorinated biphenyls had been found at surrounding sites. The state Department of Environmental Protection had indicated that this site had been tested and found not to be contaminated, he continued. "So I don't think that's an issue here."

Commission Chairman James Conant opened the motion up to the public hearing, at which no comments were offered.

The site plan for the reused building was already endorsed without objection by the Community Development Board last month, and approval of the special permit under Pittsfield's recently enacted zoning rules sailed through the city's Zoning Board on Wednesday, following a public hearing that saw no opposing voices.

"There didn't seem to be any concerns from the [zoning] board members," Michelle Butler of Total Health and Wellness told iBerkshires following Thursday's decision. "So this was our last step on the local level in terms of approval.

"Now we're just waiting on the results from the DPH," said Butler. "There's really no way to say. There are 100 applicants and they'll be accepting up to 35, so it's really anybody's guess."

If granted, current building owner Paul Lester will sell the Dalton Avenue property to Whaling Properties, which will become landlord for the nonprofit dispensary. Total Health has said it will employ well-established dispensary security technologies in the facility, which will have separated areas for the cultivation and distribution of the cannabis plant products. They anticipates 30 to 50 patients to visit per day.

Butler said if the commonwealth grants the license, preparation of the site can begin as soon as weather permits now that all local approvals are in place. Requirements for subsequent inspections by the DPH once that renovation is complete, Butler said, make the exact timetable for a potential opening date unclear.

In the event Total Health is not one of the applicants approved by the state's determining panel, the city special permit becomes void. Local nonprofit Manna Wellness has also applied for a state license to dispense in Pittsfield, and are hopeful if approved to break ground on a new building on the other side of the city, along Pittsfield's western corridor off Route 20.

According to sources within the DPH, an announcement of the Phase II applicants approved for licenses to dispense medical marijuana under Massachusetts 2012 voter-enacted law is expected at 2 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 30.

Social Service Organizations Highlight Challenges, Successes at Poverty Talk

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff
08:04AM / Sunday, April 05, 2026

Dr. Jennifer Michaels of the Brien Center demonstrates how to use Narcan. Easy access to the drug has cut overdose deaths in the county by nearly half. 

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Recent actions at the federal level are making it harder for people to climb out of poverty.

Brad Gordon, executive director of Upside413, said he felt like he was doing a disservice by not recognizing national challenges and how they draw a direct line from choices being made by the Trump administration and the challenges the United States is facing. 

"They more generally impact people's ability to work their way out of poverty, and that's really, that's really the overarching dynamic," he said. 

"Poverty is incredibly corrosive, and it impacts all the topics that we'll talk about today." 

His comments came during a conversation on poverty hosted by Berkshire Community Action Council. Eight local service agency leaders detailed how they are supporting people during the current housing and affordability crisis, and the Berkshire state delegation spoke to their own efforts.

The event held on March 27 at the Berkshire Athenaeum included a working lunch and encouraged public feedback. 

"All of this information that we're going to gather today from both you and the panelists is going to drive our next three-year strategic plan," explained Deborah Leonczyk, BCAC's executive director. 

The conversation ranged from health care and housing production to financial literacy and child care.  Participating agencies included Upside 413, The Brien Center, The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, MassHire Berkshire Career Center, Berkshire Regional Transit Authority, Greylock Federal Credit Union, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, and Child Care of the Berkshires. 

The federal choices Gordon spoke about included allocating $140 billion for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, investing $38 billion to convert warehouses into detention centers, cutting $1 trillion from Medicaid over 10 years, a proposed 50 percent increase in the defense budget, and cutting federal funding for supportive housing programs. 

Gordon pointed to past comments about how the region can't build its way out of the housing crisis because of money. He withdrew that statement, explaining, "You know what? That's bullshit, actually."

"I'm going to be honest with you, that is absolute bullshit. I have just observed over the last year or so how we're spending our money and the amount of money that we're spending on the federal side, and I'm no longer saying in good conscience that we can't build our way out of this," he said. 

Upside 413 provided a "Housing Demand in Western Massachusetts" report that was done in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts at Amherst's Donahue Institute of Economic and Public Policy Research. It states that around 23,400 units are needed to meet current housing demand in Western Mass; 1,900 in Berkshire County in 2025.