By Laura Hayes, Contributing Writer
HUDSON — A cannabis home delivery company may be coming to Hudson.
The delivery service, called TSC Delivery, would operate out of the Kane Industrial Park at 14 Kane Industrial Drive.
“We really feel that the low-impact, high taxability of this entity makes it very attractive to Hudson,” said TSC co-founder and town resident Ryan Cohen during a Hudson Planning Board meeting April 6.
TSC’s license does not allow for on-site retail or for cannabis to be cultivated on-site, Cohen said. It does, however, allow the company to buy finished cannabis from wholesale suppliers and to sell cannabis products.
TSC a part of larger Top Shelf network
Cohen is the co-founder of a group of companies called Top Shelf. That network includes Top Shelf Cannaseurs, a cultivation facility now housed in Uxbridge.
Last July, the Hudson Zoning Board of Appeals allowed Cohen’s Top Shelf Cannaseurs to move forward with a push to permit a facility on Brent Drive.
A neighbor who had previously expressed concern over odor filed an appeal, but the appeal was dismissed in December.
Still, Cohen said Top Shelf Cannaseurs moved to Uxbridge and is no longer pursuing its license on Brent Drive.
That move has raised questions about this new effort.
“Why don’t you want to deliver from the facility where you’re manufacturing?” asked Planning Board member David Daigneault. “It seems to me like there would be some advantage to doing that.”
Hudson is in a better location than Uxbridge, Cohen said.
“I’m dead-set on bringing some money to this community that I call home. I thought this would be a really good opportunity to use my existing relationship with [Trustee Kathy Adams] and Kane Industrial and bring some revenue to this town,” he then elaborated.
TSC anticipates delivery service across Massachusetts
During the planning meeting April 6, Kathy Adams said that TSC would occupy a third of the 5,700-square-foot building.
Cohen anticipates starting with five delivery vehicles, which would deliver products to homes across Massachusetts.
The trucks would leave early in the morning and return in the evening when deliveries are done.
All transactions will be cashless.
“There won’t be any smell. There won’t be any security risk. The vans would come in the morning and return in the evening. Everything would be on camera. Every gram of finished good would be highly locked up in a vault that won’t be accessible,” Cohen said.
TSC continues to seek license, permits
According to Cohen, TSC has precertification status from the state Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) for a Delivery Operator License.
This is a new type of license, Cohen said, and precertification is the furthest a company can be in the process at this time.
Locally, meanwhile, the Select Board approved a community host agreement between Hudson and TSC April 5.
As TSC is moving into an existing building instead of constructing a new one, the planning board has voted to waive its site plan requirements.
This now allows TSC to move forward in submitting an application to the CCC and the Hudson Zoning Board of Appeals.
In an email to the Community Advocate, Johnson said that TSC must specifically obtain a special permit from the zoning board, ensuring that it complies with use regulations in the overlay district.