NAHANT — With recreational marijuana shops growing across the state, the Planning Board met Tuesday night to ensure the town is ready for when the business comes to Nahant.
Board members spoke about procedures around the establishment of potential retail marijuana stores and looked into preparing regulations for those dispensaries.
Member Daniel Berman suggested that a subcommittee be formed regarding the issue and wanted fellow board member Rob Steinberg and Town Counsel JS Bianchi to be on that committee. Berman said he wanted Bianchi to sit on the subcommittee because he is familiar “with how these places work.”
The Planning Board ran into an issue of needing three members to form a subcommittee. Bianchi added that the board could put the marijuana regulations and bylaws on the board’s working agenda in lieu of having a formal subcommittee, an option that he was not in favor of.
“That might end up taking a lot of time out of our regular meetings,” said Bianchi. “(It) might not be the best route to go about it.”
Berman said the board wanted to get the bylaws and procedures in good shape before presenting them to the public in a hearing. The Planning Board hopes that it will be able to have a hearing for both the regulations and bylaws at the same time, he said.
With Bianchi and Steinberg working together on the draft of bylaws and procedures, other members of the Planning Board would be unable to present their comments unless they do so in a public meeting.
Berman said that he isn’t concerned with the “substance” of these bylaws and procedures being controversial and suggested looking at similar documents, which were drawn up by the Town of Southbridge.
“I think you guys can figure out what it ought to be without it being too controversial when it becomes before the rest of us,” he said.
Berman also said that he wanted this process to be efficient, saying that while the board is not planning to present these procedures at a special town meeting, it would if the opportunity arises.
“We are not looking to convene a special town meeting for this but we want to have it ready if there is a special town meeting for some other purpose,” he said. “We want to have it ready.”
Ultimately, the Planning Board decided to reach out to the attorney general’s office for further guidance on whether Bianchi and Steinberg could work together on potential bylaws and procedures outside of public meetings.
If not, Berman said Bianchi, in his capacity as the town’s lawyer, would create a first draft, which would be presented in a meeting and followed by a second draft written up by Steinberg. That draft would also be presented in a meeting to ensure that the board is following proper open meeting laws, he said.