North Adams Adds Cannabis Retail Licenses
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The City Council Tuesday voted, 6-1, to increase the city's number of marijuana retail establishment licenses to four.
On a night when the council's main business was approving the fiscal year 2026 budget for the city, the panel also considered revisions to the zoning ordinance that covers cannabis retail establishments.
Part of those revisions included striking earlier language that capped the number of potential pot shops at 20 percent of the number of licenses issued for package stores and, instead, allowing up to four marijuana retailers. The newly approved ordinance also allows for "outdoor, open air cultivation operations."
The meeting began with an appeal to avoid doing anything that would increase the availability of cannabis given existing concerns about its use by young people in the city.
"Some of our North Adams Police Department officers have seen an uptick in some alarming youth behavior on the basketball courts next to the UNO Community Center," said Meredith Starr, the youth prevention coordinator for the Northern Berkshire Community Coalition. "These behaviors range from fighting obstructing traffic at the corner of River and Houghton Streets as well as underage drinking, vaping and using marijuana.
"Underage youth told police officers that they were giving money to adults in and around the neighborhood to buy substances for them."
Starr told the councilors that adding more cannabis retailers would make it easier for young people to find such access to the substance.
"Although the revised ordinances for retail establishments include provisions that the retailers must be at least 500 feet away from schools and youth areas, this 500 foot buffer is not enough to prevent youth from being creative in their methods for obtaining substances," Starr said.
Several councilors said they appreciated Starr's concern but did not believe that limiting the number of retailers was an effective strategy to cut down on underage marijuana use.
"It is a problem," Ashley Shade said of the youth access to cannabis. "I don't think limiting businesses from having the ability to operate a business is going to solve that problem. I think that problem is solved with our investment in education, with more community involvement, not by restricting businesses.
"I'm going to vote in favor of this, but I want to say I've seen and understand the need for more education and more resources to protect youth from the use of marijuana, but the same could be said for other things, as well."
Andrew Fitch agreed and argued that the city should be open to new businesses.
"I don't believe in unnecessarily restricting businesses, farms, that kind of thing," Fitch said. "I'd like for us to be seen as a business-friendly city, a place where we'd foster that kind of growth. And I'd be concerned if we have, what I see as an unnecessary restriction on the books. That would be counterproductive."
Peter Oleskiewicz was the lone councilor to vote against the ordinance revision after explaining his objection specifically to its provision allowing outdoor cultivation.
Keith Bona said he pushed for that feature of the new law.
"I felt I'd rather have some farm up on a mountain growing it as opposed to a commercial building that is down on some street where you can still smell it," Bona said. "That's all stuff that would all have to be vetted through the Planning Board anyway. Chances are it would never happen. But I feel it's an agricultural product, and as long as it's secured, I am in favor of that."
In other business on Tuesday, the council rejected a proposal to amend ordinances on how members are appointed to seven different public bodies in the city, like the Mobile Home Park Rent Control Board and Human Services Commission.
The proposed revision would have removed a provision requiring consent of the council for appointments and instead allowed the mayor to make appointments independently.
Shade explained that the proposed change would have brought the local ordinance in line with Massachusetts General Law, and while she generally agrees with aligning the local ordinances with state law, "I disagree with the [state] law, and I'm not going to vote in favor of a law I disagree with."
Shade argued that by leaving the current language, requiring council consent, the city would not be breaking the law, it would just be saying the city's charter supersedes it.
The change would have required a two-thirds majority of the seven councilors in attendance; Wayne Wilkinson and Peter Breen did not attend Tuesday's meeting.
Shade, Lisa Hall Blackmer and Fitch voted against making the change. Bona, Deanna Morrow, Petre Oleskiewicz and Bryan Sapienza voted for the change. The 4-3 vote did not meet the two-thirds threshold.
On a 7-0 vote, meanwhile, the council Tuesday voted to create a new commission, the Animal Control Commission, a five-person body to "serve in an advisory capacity to the Animal Control Officer."
The council voted to postpone decisions on three items: revisions to the city's parking permit fees, the creation of a new school zone on Hodges Cross Road and new zoning regulations to regulate accessory dwelling units.
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