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Retail Marijuana Plan Hits Further Snags In Planning Board

A resident-led effort to allow recreational marijuana dispensaries in Burlington has hit a challenge as the Planning Board worried that pursuing the effort would go against community support. 

Resident Will Seagaard, who runs a cannabis cultivation facility in Fitchburg and hopes to open a dispensary in his hometown, has been pursuing the change for some time, arguing that the taxes and fees would be a financial boon to the town and the fears about the impacts of marijuana sales have proven to be overblown. 

Seagaard, along with Town Meeting Member Alex Rutfield, has been drafting a zoning bylaw that would allow recreational cannabis in certain areas of town. But the Planning Board has been reluctant to engage with the bylaw, citing a 2016 vote in which Burlington residents voted 55 to 45 not to legalize marijuana. 

The Planning Board originally considered forming a subcommittee that would look into ways to get more information from the community on whether or not there was interest in changing the recreational marijuana rules. But Brenda Rappaport opposed that idea, saying the board shouldn’t form a committee around something there wasn’t support for.

“I don’t feel like we should be spending any more time on this,” Rappaport said. “I’m concerned that we’re going to be spending a lot of time on something the community doesn’t want in Burlington. Marijuana dispensaries are pretty… There are a lot of them, and they deliver in Burlington even though they shouldn’t necessarily deliver in Burlington. We have a lot of things that are really important and I don’t think this is at the top of the list.”

“Last I heard, even though it might have been a few years ago, the town voted that it did not want recreational marijuana in Burlington and I haven’t heard any different,” said Planning Board Member Ernie Covino. 

“I was under the impression that the point of the subcommittee was to take some of this off their plate, help determine town sentiment while becoming more informed on the industry, and hear other towns’ experiences with it,” Seagaard said. “I’m still committed to moving this proposal forward and at the very least leaving it to Town Meeting to make a call on it one way or the other.”

A public hearing to further discuss the issue is scheduled for the next Planning Board meeting on November 21.