NEWS

Worcester nearing pot shop approvals

Bill Shaner
wshaner@worcestermag.com
Good Chemistry staff cutting the ribbon at the Canal District location earlier this year. File photo

As the town over is in line to host the first full recreational pot shop in the state, Worcester is about midway through an exhaustive process to pare about 40 applications down to 13 available licenses.

Within the next few weeks, Jake Sanders, assistant to the city manager in charge of overseeing the city’s recreational cannabis approval process, hopes to get recommendations to City Manager Ed Augustus Jr., who has the final say on which stores will open, and where.

The process has been a long one. Over the summer, after the City Council approved pot regulations that mandated only 15 stores open in Worcester, city hall staff put out a call for applications. The applications are for what is called a community host agreement, a document that ensures added tax revenue and one-time payments to city governments for hosting cannabis businesses. The document is necessary to receive final approval from the state regulatory body, the Cannabis Control Commission.

“It’s a complex thing. In Leicester, they were able to move forward pretty quickly. hey had one group, it was already there, but we have a lot of license to give and a lot of competing interest,” said Sanders. “We’re trying to be thoughtful about it and unfortunately that does take some time.”

In Leicester, Cultivate is one of two businesses most likely to get the first OK from state regulators to open doors. It was the first in the state to receive a provisional license. Now, after the state OK’d necessary testing labs, the business awaits a “commence full operation” order. It is unclear when state regulators will send the orders. Cultivate and New England Treatment Access in Northampton are expected to be the first to open.

In Worcester, the application process closed in late August, and a team of city staff, including officials from the manager’s office, police, fire, the planning department and inspection services, have interviewed each prospective business.

Once applications are approved, Sanders said it has not been determined how the city will announce the businesses.

Of all the concerns raised by city councilors, perhaps the biggest was making sure the 15 pot shops are spread throughout the city and the five council districts evenly. The sentiment is one of many the team will take into consideration when approving stores. Other criteria include business plans, and a mix of both large businesses and small, community-owned operations.

“There’s a number of groups that don’t have the same amount of capital, but could be local, have a good story to tell, entrepreneurial,” said Sanders. “We’re not just basing it on who has the most dollars.”

But the first two stores in Worcester to be approved for recreational sale have already gone through the city process and have a host agreement. Like Cultivate in Leicester, both are also licensed to sell medicinal cannabis. The two businesses are Good Chemistry, in the Crompton Collective warehouse complex in the Canal District, and the Botanist, off Mountain Road, which will open for medical sales later this month.