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Eric Schwartz submitting comments re: zoning for cannabis that supports small local business owners.
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To the Honorable Board:
Thanks for keeping up on the topic of cannabis legalization at the state level and recognizing that we'll need to develop a plan locally as well. I am attaching a brief description of a business plan I am working on. Farm Bug Co-op is the name of this cannabis cultivator cooperative.
Basically what I'd like to see is a zoning approach in Somerville where small local business owners and minority-owned cannabis ventures are given preference for licensing and zoning. This will ensure that these cannabis businesses are more active participants in community building.
There are draft regulations that include equity in legalized California in the Oakland, SF, and LA communities. We can use those as models to ensure that Somerville is in line with the part of the Massachusetts law that says that communities disproportionately affected by the war on drugs shall be given preference for cannabis licensing.
I would gladly sit on a neighborhood committee on behalf of the legalization movement to ensure that Somerville zoning is more friendly to locally-owned and minority-owned cannabis businesses that will be more active members of the community where they exist rather than a corporation that wants to drive a stake between themselves and the local community (which unfortunately some of these dispensaries are doing right now).
I look forward to working to ensure that the recreational legalization of cannabis is more friendly to our local community.
Sincerely,
Eric Schwartz