As WCVB reported this week (and in a TAB oped that does not seem to be online) a proposal for a medical marijuana dispensary right behind the Negoshian’s at the corner of Route 9 and Elliot Street, is attracting a lot of heat from neighbors.
Now folks can support or oppose medical marijuana clinics. We can be supportive or opposed to recreational marijuana stores (and the proprietor of this clinic hopes to one day also be approved as a retail store). We can debate whether or not the presence of a clinic or retail shop will harm teens. We can disagree over many retails stores is too many or not enough.
But can we at least agree that — contrary to the claims made in the TAB op-ed and heard in public hearings — this corner of Route 9 and Elliot is not a “residential neighborhood”? Yes there are homeowners on the other side of Elliot (a stretch, btw, that is almost impossible to cross) but behind it are the T tracks and behind that the DPW yard. Take a look for yourself.
The prohibitionists don’t really care about location. It just suits their argument to claim that every dispensary is a threat to some neighborhood…
This is really about a much larger agenda. Prohibitionists were stunned when they lost at the ballot box in 2016. They want to reverse that vote. They can’t put the legalization issue back on the State ballot, so they’re trying to reverse it at the local level one municipality at a time.The sad part is that so many of Newton’s elected officials are buying into and even facilitating this nonsense…
The prohibitionist’s objections to cannabis are in large part based on ignorance. They’ve now objected to two medical dispensaries in two different shopping plazas that already have liquor stores. It’s irrational. And irrational, ignorant fear causes some people to reject social change…
America went through this same thing with the suffrage movement, civil rights, and same sex marriage. According to conservatives, all were precursors to the end of civilization. Turns out that conservatives have about the same track as the Mayans for predicting the end of the world.
What’s troubling here is that the license application is for a _medical_ dispensary.
In the WCVB story, Opt Out Newton is on record opposing the medical license because the owner expressed a desire to sell recreational. But no recreational application has been filed.
OON spokespeople have repeatedly and explicitly said they are ok with medical. The organization never said they planned to impose litmus tests on medical dispensary applications.
If Opt Out Newton followed its own charter, it would not oppose this medical license. It doesn’t matter what the applicant said or didn’t say. This is a medical license.
This is about as good as it going to get
in terms of a location for a dispensary. Yes there is a neighborhood within a couple of blocks, but the whole area is so dangerous to traverse by car or foot that any danger from a pot dispensary should be a secondary concern.
This intersection of Route 9 and Eliot St has to be one of the most dangerous in the city. Just trying to exit off of Eliot from either Rt 9 or the falls into the parking lot where the dispensary would be is a major challenge. There are no schools nearby other than Countryside over near me about 3 minutes away and again, the far bigger more immediate daily danger to children, adults and pets here is traffic and speeding vehicles. The would be dispensary location is behind a gas station in an area where you have to know what is there to even be there.
No one ends up there by accident.
I have lived very close to this location for the last 40 years and worked at the old Purity Supreme where the CVS is now located near the would be dispensary.
This mini mall area has for many decade been a low-key dumpy
non-descript locale. There is a liquor store and a coin-op laundry there. Yes there are a bunch of anti-pot dispensary lawn signs in the nearby area, but i would be willing to bet that the most powerful, monied,
vocal opponents of a pot dispensary at this location not only dont live anywhere near it, but wouldn’t be caught dead there as it is a very modest area where the last of Newton’s middle class homes are located. Other than living near the location, I don’t have any skin on either side of the pot/dispensary issue,
but if this location gets rejected, we need to start looking to locate the dispensaries in the neighborhoods of the OptOut organizers. Has anyone identified any of these OptOut folks Greg?
A visit to city hall would unmask all of them in a second. They probably had to register their group….
The Opt Out organizers are entitled to speak out, seek a ban and, most importantly not be ostracized.
That’s not the same as saying that the City Council should grant them an easy path to getting a ban on the ballot for a referendum that Newton voters previously approved by a large margin. They should be required to go out and get the needed signatures.
Looks like the next location
shop for a pot dispensary is either Newton Center near Comm Ave or
Waban. A “concerned” Newton Center doctor from a high rent neighborhood and a parent from Waban – all high rent neighborhoods – no where near Eliot St,- have decided they don’t want the dispensary over on Eliot st. What did I tell you?
Paul,
What are you going to do once you “unmask” the opt out folks?
Are you going protest in front of their home?
Heckle them at work?
Post their b
Names and address on the internet and try to have people boycott them?
Why is it important to personally identify them?
@Greg and Bugek-
Heckling and ostracizing is always completely unacceptable, and as we have seen recently can be quite dangerous.
What I’d prefer is a little truth in advertising. A better approach perhaps would be to ask why the organizers of OptOut who live nowhere near the proposed dispensaries feel it is their business to decide they shouldnt be located there, or anywhere.
Clearly I’m in the minority, but the audacity of all of these “concerned”
residents, or in some cases nonresidents is breathtaking.
Some people and their kids were out holding signs today in protest. The pro-cannabis group needs to gain some traction NOW. I would like to help, but I don’t know where to start!
It looks like there is a Facebook group just formed called “Newton Residents for Fairness”. It popped up on my feed today, but I haven’t found any other information about it yet.
The group calls for Newton City Council to “respect the vote” (ie. Question 4). Just like with OON, I am very curious to know who has started this group and what financial support, if any, is involved.
@MMQT– There’s a state wide political action committee in the process of finalizing a strategy to defend the 2016 law in Newton. I will post more info as it becomes available…
Additionally, I have personally engaged legal council to defend my rights as a voter. I’ve been asked to avoid commenting publicly about the nature of that possible case…
However, I have already stated clearly on V-14 that I will challenge any scenario which includes multiple ballot initiatives, since multiple initiatives would require voters to vote “no” TWICE in order to keep the law they already voted in favor of two years ago.
You’re right about the need for pro-cannabis forces to gain traction now. That is already happening. If the full Council actually goes ahead with this revote, I am very confident pro-cannabis will win at the ballot box again. So it’s critically important to make sure that the wording of any opt out initiative REQUIRES the City Council to fully implement the 2016 law after the voter’s reject opting out.
Do people have a sense that the results of this survey are accurate? https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2018/06/29/study-about-1-in-5-massachusetts-adults-use-pot-many-report-driving-high
My reaction was that both numbers seem high, but maybe that’s because I’ve never been a consumer, and I’m seeing my coworkers only during working hours. But, for example, I’ve shown up at a lot of people’s houses to do photos over many years, and I’ve never noticed a lingering smell of pot, the way I occasionally (but surprisingly rarely) encounter the smell of cigarettes.
On rare occasions I get a whiff of marijuana out on the street while walking or driving, but a trivial number compared to how often I smell mercaptan (the natural gas odorant).
Julia, I’d say that’s probably accurate. It’s much more common and socially acceptable to people 18-35, and I bet the percentage is much much higher in that cohort boosting the overall adult percentage.
This issue is absolutely a generational split issue.
Except for this 81 year old Curmudgeon who believes fervently that we should never allow our policies to be based on fear driven and grossly inaccurate propaganda from the past. This is why Mike Striar had to travel out of state for his late wife’s treatment and why my mom absolutely refused to have me get her some marijuana to help relieve pain and discomfort in the last months of her terminal cancer. She was afraid (and rightfully so) that if I got caught, I’d lose my job at EPA along with my top secret security clearance and pension.
False, malicious and self serving lies and propaganda are still pouring out of Washington and you just have to wonder if the truth will ever catch up fully with all of them. Looking at marijuana doesn’t give me much cause for hope.
At what point will the city council make decisions based on the merits of an issue and not on who “fills the chamber” or their email boxes? The voters have spoken – two years ago.
Change is hard, but I’d much prefer that people buy marijuana from a dispensary with regulations in place than from drug dealers selling who knows what. If anyone thinks that banning dispensaries is going to stop the sale of weed in Newton (and very likely your neighborhood, no matter where you live) isn’t looking at the reality of this situation.
You definitely won’t be protecting kids by banning dispensaries – they all know how to get it already. Even my son, who never touched drugs nor had alcohol until he was in college, knew who was smoking in high school and how to score if he wanted to.
@Meredith. I know three young folks from Newton who tell me without much pretense that marijuana is readily available for sale throughout Newton. One said it’s almost like a moving bazaar. That doesn’t mean that most kids use it, only that it is readily available for all who want it.
@Bob – exactly the point I was making. Kids who want to use already know how to get it. Kids who don’t want to also know how to get it. Availability is not the deciding factor.
Let me get this straight- the group is trying to protect the children hanging out at the liquor store in a run-down parking lot from the evils of weed?
If OON is successful, maybe someone should propose an 80-unit apartment building on the site instead.
It’s not surprising that marijuana shops would become a Not In My Backyard issue, but the concern seems like mostly hysteria. People would pull into the parking lot, get their weed and leave, not aimlessly wander into the neighborhood blocks away. This is a permit application for a medical dispensary, but even if it was retail recreational, no one is going to make it a destination trip to get high in that shitty parking lot any more than there are kegs set up from the 4 liquor stores in Newton Upper Falls.
The pro-Cannabis people should pull some data from pot stores in similar neighborhoods in Colorado, which would probably show no negative impact on crime or property values. The people who are anti-pot really don’t want it anywhere because it seems like a false argument that it would have impact on the neighborhood level. It’s not a hash bar where people get high on site.
There are not many businesses that those buildings behind the gas station would be a good location for and the dispensary would be a good fit.
It’s across from the edge of a residential neighborhood that continues down Elliot Street and around the corner on Boylston Street. The real issue for this site and the one proposed on Beacon Street are that there’s already too much traffic at both sites and the conflicts and turning movements that a successful shop will generate will make things worse. I would respectfully suggest that the shops be used as developmental tools for sites that can accomodate the high traffic generation that proponents hope for.
I would suggest that a shop be proposed for one of the empty storefronts on Needham Street, long populated only by the pictures of people in the windows . The proponents of Welles Avenue want uses that would bring more people at more different hours and make the site more attractive for workers. I would suggest that a marijuana shop would accomplish both.
@Brian Yates – I don’t believe the “real issue:”is traffic.
This is a commercial building in a commercial zone that was recently a restaurant that generated more traffic than is projected for this new use, I’m pretty certain that if a new restaurant with just as much traffic had moved in there, we wouldn’t see “Stop the Restaurant – For the kids” signs on Elliot St lawns today.
@Brian Yates, the adjacent Route 9 clearly handles more traffic than Needham Street can accommodate. The recent discussions around the Needham Street redesign and the numerous discussions around the Northland Project all carry with them complaints about traffic on Needham Street, so I’ m not quite sure how you can say that Needham St. is a better location from a traffic perspective.
It’s possible that the properties you describe on Needham Street would be good for this kind of use. Though it seems closer to a residential neighborhood (both single family and multi-tenant), so I’m not sure how that helps your argument.
I’m sorry but this is nonsense. I live on route 9 near Elliot. We VOTED YES on Marijuana as a TOWN. Are we going to just disregard the will of the people that won voting YES on this? there should absolutely no debate or even a question on this issue. This was voted on, voters approved of this. Just because a vocal minority is opposed to this doesn’t mean the will of the majority of the people that overwhelmingly voted for this should be ignored. these people knocked on my door the other day asking my opinion. I didn’t even know there was going to be a pot shop in my neighborhood until I saw a few signs from the negative willies. I told them yes I have heard about it. When they asked me how I felt I said. Great, hope they open soon. And they said thanks and left. I guess they didn’t like my answer since they did not allow me to sign their little petition book.
@Chuck….. in the last year and a half alone I have seen many restaurants and business opening on both sides of Needham street between Five Bros and NTB but suddenly a pot shop its a traffic problem? How so? Sounds a little hypocritical to me.
Agree. Needham Street is a perfectly logical location for a marijuana retailer and so is the corner of Elliot and Route 9.
I also believe traffic concerns are overblown. A marijuana shop won’t create any more traffic than, say, a Cabot’s Ice Cream II and I doubt Elliot Street residents would object to that.
If Mayor Fuller had been on the ball–and the City Council actually worked to implement rather than obstruct the law, there was a licensed cannabis grower who wanted to buy the old NE Mobile Book Fair Building on Needham Street, and use it for a processing center and retail shop. The City lost about $1.5M per year in revenue because our elected “leaders” were too busy playing reefer madness.
@Jason I agree with you. I was making a point about the concerns I hear regarding Needham Street, including those that happened in meetings that included former councilor Yates. It seems that traffic is always the stalking horse, regardless of the facts.