Walpole Town Meeting Approves Moratorium on Marijuana Dispensaries

The town of Walpole voted on Monday in the third day of the town meeting to put a one-year moratorium on the placement and construction of a medical marijuana dispensary in town.

The delay, according to health agent Robin Chapell, is to allow the town to look over state regulations regarding the placement of such facilities and make municipal regulations if necessary.

“The department of public health has been putting together draft regulations and just a couple of days ago voted on what the regulations were,” she said. “We didn’t know exactly what the regulations were going to be.”

Chapell said the town needed more time to review the regulations, as the town could have voted on the issue before they were released by the state.

“We don’t have any zoning [ordinances] in place to deal with that if someone were to come to our community and set one up,” she said. “In the regulations, which they finally passed and become effective on May 24 I believe, they give local boards of health the right to implement their own regulations on top of that. We needed to see what they had to see if there were any gaps.”

Chapell added the regulations are not the only things that have to be sorted out at this point.

"Instead of rushing through this, because this is a big change for the community and we're not asking for a ban, we're just asking them to give us time," she said.