GB Marijuana Facility Issue Resolved Among Boards

Looking back at Monday's Great Barrington Town Meeting, the battle over which town board would hold sway over any proposed recreational marijuana facilities was finally settled.

The Berkshire Edge reports, the battle royale involved the planning and select boards. For weeks, the two panels had been at odds over which should be the special-permit-granting authority and whether most, if not all, of the facilities should require a special permit.

The planning board, under the guidance of town planner Chris Rembold, has spent the better part of a year crafting a set of regulations to deal with the sale of recreational marijuana. Click here to see the final version that the planning board approved in February. The current bylaw regulates only medical marijuana, which was approved by voters statewide in 2013.

Click here to read the final regulations filed by state cannabis regulators with the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office. The consensus among both boards was that if only the state regulations applied, the only major zoning obstacle to its development would be that a cannabis facility could not be situated 500 feet or fewer from a school.

In the end, the selectmen’s amendment passed by a margin of 182-101