WINDHAM — The Town Council’s representative on the new marijuana task force says the six community members in the group are “biased” in their stance on marijuana and “extremely aggressive” in their efforts.

The council created the Retail Medical and Adult-Use Marijuana Establishments Task Force to review state laws and Windham’s zoning map regarding marijuana establishments. The task force is then to make recommendations to the council.

Councilor Dave Nadeau was appointed to the task force Dec. 11 as the council’s representative. All six of the community members on the nine-member task force have a financial interest in the industry, whether as the owner of a marijuana-related business or as a licensed medical caregiver. The chairwoman, Maggie Terry, is the owner of Legal Leaf, which sells indoor growing supplies.

Nadeau called the task force “a group that’s extremely aggressive that wants to get things done as soon as they can.”

“Maggie is extremely aggressive. All of them got skin in the game. There’s money waiting on the sidelines,” he said in an interview this week.

Councilor Tim Nangle expressed concern about the bias of the task force members at a council meeting Oct. 23 when members began to be appointed.

“My understanding of the committee was to have both sides of the issue represented, and during the interviews all of the interviewees were considered advocates for medical marijuana and retail,” he said.

Applications for such committees are reviewed by the Appointments Committee and voted on by the council.

“The people we appointed were the only people who applied. Unfortunately, you did not have a lot of people with varying viewpoints,” Councilor Jarrod Maxfield, a member of the Appointments Committee, said in an interview.

Terry said she wishes there were someone with an opposing viewpoint on the task force “so we could understand why they’re opposed.”

When the council appointed a council representative to the task force at its Dec. 11 meeting, Terry urged Vice Chairwoman Rebecca Cummings to sit on the committee because of her well-known opposition to marijuana. Cummings refused, and Nadeau was chosen.

The community members on the task force are Shaw Dwight, a licensed caregiver who plans to open a medical marijuana storefront in Windham called Paul’s Boutique Nursery in April; David Whitten, who operates a medical marijuana storefront called Sticky Bud Farms in Windham; Joel Pepin, who runs High Tech Garden Supplies in Portland, which provides indoor growing supplies, and is the co-founder of SJR Labs, which produces medical cannabis extracts; Charles Boehm, a medical cannabis grower; and Charles Hawkins Jr., the owner of Maine’s Alternative Caring, a medical marijuana caregiver store in Windham, who ran unsuccessfully for Town Council in November on a platform promoting retail and medical marijuana policy.

Other members of the task force are Kaitlyn Tuttle of the Planning Board and Michael Duffy of the Long Range Planning Committee.

Terry said the task force has only had one meeting, and she hopes to meet weekly  in council chambers. She encourages residents to come and voice their opinions, especially if they disagree.

“I plan to allow the public time to voice their concerns so we can hear them and make sure we’re incorporating them into what we’re looking at,” she said.

Terry stressed that she has encouraged those with different viewpoints to join the committee to no avail.

Marijuana has been a topic of growing discussion in recent months. Councilors talked about retail medical marijuana establishments at their Jan. 15 meeting after resident Ron Giroux said that a medical marijuana store recently moved to his residential street.

Terry said the task force is also looking for a way for Windham to opt into recreational marijuana, which was not included in their stated tasks from the council. Each municipality must decide individually the details of its recreational marijuana use, although the state has not completed its rulemaking process.

“I want to open up a retail adult use cannabis store. So yes, I’m looking at (opting in.) I asked for the committee (to be created) for a reason,” she said.

Nadeau thinks it is “extremely biased that you’re not going to look at, do we want to opt in?”

“We’re business people. We don’t operate on a government level with this slow process. We want to move on. The voters voted it in, it’s a hot industry, why not?” Terry said.

Medical marijuana has been legal in Maine since 1999, albeit with continual updates and rule changes, and Maine voted to legalize the cultivation, distribution and sale of recreational marijuana in 2016. Terry said she is trying to fulfill what Mainers want and urge the council to do its job.

“We’re trying to find a way for the town to opt in so (residents) don’t feel like it’s a drug town. We don’t want Windham to be the weed capital of Maine. I’m simply asking the council to find a way to do what the citizens have voted for,” she said.

After the task force brings its recommendations to the council, the council will decide what to do with them.

Nangle stressed in an interview Wednesday that the council “still has the final word on their recommendations.”

A recently-formed citizens group, meanwhile, is concerned the town is moving prematurely and too rapidly on marijuana regulation. It would like the town to slow down when it comes to marijuana regulations and better consider their impact.

The group wants to make “sure we’re being proactive in terms of what could happen if we allow all of this,” said Laura Morris, a member of the group and the director of Be the Influence, a parenting program that seeks to reduce teen alcohol and drug use.

“We feel like it’s important that the community is aware there are repercussions that they should just consider before any decisions are made,” she continued.

The group plans to meet with the council next month and wants to spread awareness about the impact widespread marijuana use may have on law enforcement, code enforcement, zoning, traffic and businesses.

“We just want to make sure we know what’s going on,” Morris said. “We have concerns about our future as medical and recreational marijuana becomes more prevalent. And how does that impact Windham?”

Jane Vaughan can be reached at 780-9103 or at jvaughan@keepmecurrent.com.

At the Oct. 23 town council meeting, Councilor Tim Nangle was worried the new task force was too one-sided.

Maine’s Alternative Caring at 771 Roosevelt Trail in Windham is owned by Charles Hawkins Jr., a member of the marijuana task force.

Nadeau

Copy the Story Link