LISBON — Lisbon Code Enforcement Officer Dennis Douglass said there may be illegal medical marijuana growing operations in rural parts of town.

At issue are commercial medical marijuana cultivation operations in town that haven’t been licensed by the town, making it an illegal operation. Douglas declined Wednesday to say how many medical marijuana cultivation operations or potential operations are in question.

“Until I know it’s illegal … until I investigate, I’m not going to divulge that,” he said.

It’s not a widespread problem, Douglass insisted.

The town allows medical marijuana retail stores and medical marijuana cultivation in the commercial and village areas. They are not allowed in rural areas, Douglass said.

Douglass told the town council on Nov. 10 that it is a “big problem that we haven’t addressed.”

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“The ones that we know of that exist aren’t legally operating but nothing was done about it so we have to figure out how to attack that,” Douglass said.

Douglass said the planning board will look at whether the town should change its rules and allow commercial cultivation of medical marijuana outside of the village commercial zones, Douglass said.

“It took a long time to put medical marijuana laws in place, and now we’re fine-tuning,” Douglass said Wednesday.

The Lisbon Town Council adopted medical marijuana rules in October 2018.

Enforcement of violation of those rules would likely fall under the jurisdiction of Lisbon police and the code enforcement officer, Douglass said.

Douglass said he hasn’t issued any citations as a result of violations at this point. A citation would normally charge $100 for every day there is a violation.

Lisbon Police Chief Ryan McGee said Wednesday that as far as he knows, the police department hasn’t received any recent complaints about illegal marijuana growing operations. McGee said licensing violations would likely under the jurisdiction of the code enforcement office as a civil rather than criminal violation.

The town has two licensed medical marijuana cultivation operations and has started reviewing an application for a third proposed for the industrial park.

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