Brookline Not Likely To Drop Cannabis Mitigation Fee

BROOKLINE, MA — Brookline is unlikely to go the way of Northampton, which recently decided to waive the community impact fees it has been charging cannabis businesses if they deem the business has no adverse impact on the community.

"The Town most definitely considers the cannabis retail operations in Brookline to have short and long term impacts that justifies a host community impact fee," said Brookline Town Administrator Mel Kleckner.

Since it opened in February 2016 as a medical marijuana dispensary at the corner of Route 9 and Washington Street in Brookline Village —the first such establishment to come to greater Boston — neighbors have complained about everything from a perceived uptick in public urination, to more trash and less parking. When Sanctuary Medicinal opened in 2020 in Coolidge Corner, it, too, was met with consternation from neighbors.

Both agreed to pay Brookline 3 percent of the store's medical and recreational marijuana revenues.

Between opening for medical in February 2016 and the end of 2019, NETA had contributed approximately $1.4 million to the town alone. It also volunteered to make annual donations to a local charity. So far, it has donated some $875,000 to the Brookline Community Foundation, regularly has crews out picking up trash around Brookline Village and has a philanthropic branch dedicated to helping local organizations.

In 2020 the town set up a Cannabis Mitigation Advisory Committee, lead by Select Board member Nancy Heller, tasked to advise the Community Impact Coordinator and the Select Board on the expenditure of community impact fees and the implementation of mitigation measures associated with the sale of recreational marijuana in town.

Heller said she was surprised at the Northampton mayor's decision.

"There's definitely impacts here," she said. Her committee is looking at recommending the town use some of the mitigation money to beef up educational programming in schools and adding a special educational position within the health department, she said. She expects to have a report to the Select Board by the summer.

Town Meeting Member Paul Warren who is also an advisory committee member and has advocated against allowing cannabis shops in St. Mary's and Coolidge Corner, said he sees the mitigation fee as an especially valuable way to address inequity.

"It's absolutely worth keeping in Brookline. Northampton and Brookline are two very different communities and locations," Warren said noting Brookline has large national highly funded cannabis institutions in town, rather than helping small business owners.

Town Meeting member Donnelle O'Neal proposed last year that the town should use some of the community impact fee to deal with the inequity that hasn't been dealt with in town or the state, Warren said he agreed with that.

"At a minimum we shouldn't relinquish community impacts because it needs to be tied directly to vulnerable populations most impacted that haven't been dealt with at the state level," said Warren. "To be honest, we still don't know if we have a handle on the impacts [of the shops] in the neighborhoods, especially amid COVID."

Warren said he suspects that once the pandemic subsides those impacts will become more clear.

"I would not support relinquishing mitigation fees," he said. "Most importantly because I think we've done a great disservice to people of color who were disproportionately affected by cannabis, and we're supposed to be dealing with that, and we're not."

There are currently two cannabis retailers in town. NETA is in the process of getting approval to move its medicinal operations from the Brookline Village shop to a location closer to the border of Newton. There's also a shop that is preparing to open on the border of Boston along Commonwealth Avenue.

Previously:

• NETA Responds To Brookline Fears About Marijuana
• US Attorney's Office Investigates Brookline Marijuana Contracts...

Jenna Fisher is a news reporter for Patch. Got a tip? She can be reached at Jenna.Fisher@patch.com or by calling 617-942-0474. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@ReporterJenna). Have a something you'd like posted on the Patch? Here's how.