FREEPORT — The Town Council will hold a hearing Tuesday, Jan. 21, on whether to allow the cultivation of marijuana for recreational use, which would loosen the town’s strict medical-only cultivation rules.

The meeting will be held at Town Hall, 30 Main St., at 6 p.m.

Medicinal growers trying to pivot their business plans toward recreational use have approached the council several times in the past year, the Times Record reported Chairman John Egan saying.

“We’re opening up a discussion to hear from the industry and from the residents if they think we should consider adult-use growing operations since they’re already here,” he said.

Neither of Freeport’s two businesses that cultivate medical marijuana has drawn any official complaints. According to the Times Record, a medical marijuana moratorium was put in place in 2016, and the town banned retail marijuana stores, cultivation facilities, product manufacturing facilities, testing facilities and social clubs the following year because they “raise a number of concerns related to public safety and welfare,” especially related to children, the ordinance states.

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