Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | November 25, 2019 | Worcester Business Journal 9 VISIT INTHINKAGENCY.COM/CONSULT TO BOOK YOUR ASSESSMENT NOW! REVENUE YTD: 98% CONVERSION RATE: 537% WEBSITE TRAFFIC: 116% A GUARANTEED RETURN ON YOUR MARKETING INVESTMENT —OR YOUR MONEY BACK! $1.7 Billion Strong. 100% Local. Focused on delivering solutions Dedicated to serving you Committed to local communities unibank.com 1.800.578.4270 Stop by our Worcester branch at 24 Gold Star Boulevard. UniBank's team has deep local roots and are committed to serving our customers. UniBank President Chris Foley is dedicated to working with Worcester organizations and serving the local community. Member FDIC/Member DIF The legislature needs to act F L AS H P O L L How should the excessive marijuana community fee issue be addressed? The Massachusetts legislature should write stronger language capping fees at 3%. 42% The Cannabis Control Commission should reject any HCAs requiring more than 3%. 36% community agreements. "It certainly would have been a smoother and better and more rational process if they had been reviewed for compliance with state law all along," Simon said. Simon hopes the federal investigation will lead to renewed discussion about improving the process, as no other state has a similar way of organizing approval of cannabis businesses. "We are actively encouraging other states not to follow this model," he said. "is has been one raincloud that has sort of hovered over the process and prevented the law from being as success- ful in certain respects as we would like." Extensive subpoena requests While these questions continue to play out, several local officials said they're not particularly worried about the federal investigation and are com- plying with the subpoenas' demands. Worcester City Hall spokesman Michael Vigneux described Lelling's requests as pretty extensive and said the city is providing the requested documents. Hudson, one of the first places in the state to have a recreational dispensary open, had already sent the requested documents in by Nov. 12, though Ex- ecutive Assistant omas Moses said it was no small task. "It was a little unusual, because they asked for dra documents, which typi- cally we delete," Moses said. "ere's no reason to keep them. ey're not public records." Still, Moses said he was able to gather many dra versions of relevant pa- perwork, along with notes on internal deliberations and other materials. "I probably had hundreds of emails that said 'Can you meet at 2:00?' 'No, I can't, let's move it.' ey wrote the sub- poena so broad as to include those, so I had to find them," Moses said. In terms of the contents of Hudson's HCAs and its compliance with state law, Moses said the first agreement the town made with a company did include a pro- vision asking it to make a donation to a nonprofit of the company's choice. Moses said the thinking was this would be a way to support organizations related to fighting drug abuse, though the agreement did not specify the nature of the group. In subsequent agreements with other businesses, Moses said the town did not make any request of that kind. He said the town would be fine with a demand to eliminate the request for a donation. "e worst I think that could happen to Hudson was they'd find that one agreement, and they'd say take that donation out, which we wouldn't have a problem," he said. The Massachusetts legislature should relax the 3% limit. 22% In order to obtain their licenses to open, marijuana companies need a host community agreement, where they agree to a community impact fee covering the costs imposed on the community. The Massachusetts law says this fee cannot be more than 3% of the company's gross sales. However, most HCAs have fees far exceeding 3%. The Cannabis Control Commission, which regulates the industry, says it does not have the authority to approve or reject the HCAs and has called on the Massachusetts legislature to fix the law. When polled online, the plurality of WBJ readers said the legislature should set a hard 3% limit. W

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