By Melanie Petrucci, Senior Community Reporter
Northborough – A public hearing on a general bylaw for opting-out of allowing establishments that sell recreational marijuana was held during the March 12 Board of Selectmen’s meeting. Attending the meeting were several residents who were upset that the town is considering opting out of allowing the sale of both recreational and medical marijuana.
“Overwhelming support has been shown for prohibiting recreational marijuana in Northborough,” said Town Planner Kathy Joubert who then gave a brief update on three articles that will go before Town Meeting Monday, April 23. They include one general and two zoning bylaws.
The general bylaw mirrors the first zoning bylaw (put forth by the Planning Committee) in language that would prohibit marijuana establishments in Northborough. The zoning bylaw goes into greater detail.
The second zoning bylaw provides for regulatory provisions should the opt-out bylaws fail. This bylaw restricts marijuana establishments to the highway business district.
Jason Perreault, the board’s chair, opened the Public Hearing where half-dozen residents spoke in favor of defeating the bylaw. Some said they felt as if they were “blindsided” by the bylaws.
“How do we know this had overwhelming support?” Tom Sullivan asked. “How was this assessed?”
“To date the only input we have received either individually or as a board to my knowledge has been advocacy of a full prohibition,” Perreault replied.
Sullivan countered that he thought that was a bad thing for civil libertarian reasons and thought restricting medical marijuana was absurd.
“I understand the recreational marijuana/medical marijuana, ‘Cheech and Chong’, reefer madness and all that but I’m concerned with the medical marijuana,” resident Brian Russell, said. He added that Northborough voted overwhelmingly in favor of medical marijuana.
“This isn’t a done deal, this gets voted on at Town Meeting…it’s strongly urged that anyone who has an opinion either way to go to Town Meeting,” Selectman Jeff Amberson said.
“…My life is busy and I missed all this because I voted for it in the state. I didn’t think I had to come back and make sure Northborough wasn’t going to change everything. This is like the casinos,” resident Anne St. John said.
“I’d like to thank you for your hard work. I think you’ve come up with a very good bylaw. It will protect our town and help us be able to plan for the future…” resident Karen Tucker said.
The warrant for the TM was closed later in the meeting which meant no new articles could be included. Final information will be put in place by the board’s March 26 meeting when the warrant is finalized.
