Marijuana Retailer Gets Approval To Open In Brookline, Barely

UPDATE: Brookline Vote On Marijuana Business Not Valid: Town Attorney

BROOKLINE, MA — After three years of meeting with boards, community members and checking boxes and adjusting plans to Brookline's specifications, Mission Inc, came before the Select Board Tuesday to get its final approval to open a marijuana retail shop on Comm Ave.

They are now set to open later this year after a single Select Board member voted in favor and the other three present abstained from voting.

UPDATE: Brookline Vote On Marijuana Business Not Valid: Town Attorney

The company was met with pushback from both select board members and members of the public Tuesday, who asked why, after three years, it had not proactively taken more steps to address a lack of diversity within its ranks, especially among ownership, which is composed of mostly white men.

"I don't like the fact that companies come in, and talk about diversity, but they're an all white company," Select Board Chair Bernard Greene told the company's representative during the hearing. "There's just a problem there. Given the connections you guys had coming in, there's just no justification."

When Brookline began the process to allow medical marijuana, and then retail cannabis shops, in town more than five years ago there was talk of a desire to ensure diversity. But there was no official measure put in place. The state Cannabis Control Commission offers to fast-track applicants who qualify on their end, but Brookline has no similar effort.

Hamilton said the Select Board at the time was under the mistaken assumption that the CCC would draft guidelines for local communities to factor in equity, but that didn't happen.

"It appears there was a missed opportunity along the way," Select Board member Heather Hamilton said in a phone interview after the meeting. "At least half of the fault lies with us."

Hamilton said she was underwhelmed with Mission's presentation and professions to work on increasing diversity at their higher levels.

She wasn't alone.

"The company could have been doing more before now," said board member John VanScoyoc. "We own the fact that we didn't make it a requirement, but that doesn't mean the applicants get off scot-free."

Nine Brookline residents, including two candidates for Select Board, asked the board not to give final approval, and instead pushed the town to uplift more diverse companies, like local resident John Lau, who has proposed his own shop.

But it's unclear if the town can do that legally, said Town Counsel Patty Correa.

Board members Hamilton, VanScoyoc and Raul Fernandez proposed putting a pin in the vote to check to see if they could somehow ensure that going forward, at least with the fourth licensee, they could ensure more diversity.

The company, which is paying rent at the Comm Ave property, protested, asking "how is that fair?"

Brookline has a cap of four retail marijuana licenses. The two in place - NETA and Sanctuary - are also owned by companies with ownership that is majority white and male. Although Lau has applied to open a shop, Brookline's process is first-come-first serve and others are in line ahead of him, so Town staff said it's unlikely that he would win one of the two licenses left.

"What are we to do? It's not in our regulations that we can fault them for [lack of diversity]," Hamilton said.

Fernandez acknowledged changing the rules three years into the process for the applicant would be a blow to the board's credibility but said the town needed to do more than ask for diversity.

"There's a real opportunity for us at this critical juncture to figure out if we are going to get serious about the thing we keep talking about every time we see NETA, every time we see Sanctuary," Fernandez said. "What I don't want to do is do what we've done in the past, which is have this conversation, vote to approve and then forget that we had the conversation and move on to other things."

Hamilton, Fernandez and VanScoyoc abstained, Greene was the only yes vote and Heller was absent.

Because there was a quorum present and abstentions don't count toward a total vote, Mission was granted its final town approval. Though Town Administrator Mel Kleckner said the town counsel Joslin Murphy is researching that.

The Arizona-based company, 4Front Ventures got its community host agreement approval from the town in 2018, and approval from the Brookline Planning Board in 2019 to start the construction of a "Mission branded" cannabis dispensary at 1024 Commonwealth Ave., where a salon used to be situated. The building itself sits in Brookline, though the sidewalk is shared with Boston.

Mission Brookline will be by appointment only and feature online orders, according to the company.

The company also has a dispensary in Georgetown, a dispensary and cultivation and processing facilities in Worcester and locations in Michigan and Illinois.

Brookline became the first community in greater Boston to allow a cannabis shop to open with New England Treatment Access in Brookline Village in 2016 and then Sanctuary Medicinals in Coolidge Corner in 2020. NETA is also edging toward opening a second location close to the Newton border in Chestnut Hill.

Previously: Brookline Not Likely To Drop Cannabis Mitigation Fee