LEGISLATURE TO PASS OVERHAULED POT LAW
Two processes for town OK may create legal challenge
Lawmakers are poised today to pass a rewrite of the state’s pot law and send it to Gov. Charlie Baker, fulfilling their promise to overhaul the ballot question approved by 1.8 million voters.
The House and the Senate yesterday each approved a conference committee’s report reshaping the bill, setting up a procedural vote for today that will officially move the new law to Baker’s desk.
In doing so, House leaders defended the rewrite as “practical.” It will hike the tax rate on recreational weed from 12 percent up to 20 percent, reshuffle how the marijuana industry is overseen statewide and drastically alters how towns and cities can move to ban or limit marijuana facilities from within their borders.
That change to so-called local control — which requires a local voter referendum for the 260 municipalities that voted for legalization last November but only a vote by local elected officials in the towns or cities that voted against it — has already drawn predictions of a possible legal challenge.
Some experts have said it could violate the state constitution’s equal protection clause by imposing two different processes on local towns and cities. Geoffrey Beckwith, CEO of the Mass. Municipal Association, said the two-tiered system “will be very challenging.”
“It is unfortunate and disappointing that the remaining 260 communities will face ongoing problems that will make it very hard to implement the law smoothly,” he said in a statement.
But Speaker of the House Robert A. DeLeo called the bill, as a whole, a “good compromise” between the House and the Senate, whose members huddled for weeks behind closed doors before producing a final version of the legislation weeks after a selfimposed June 30 deadline.
“I’m sure there may be an issue down the road that we didn’t consider, possibly, but I’m much more comfortable with the regulations that we have in place,” DeLeo told reporters after a closed-door Democratic caucus that stretched more than hour. “I understand what compromise is all about being here a number of years.”
Asked of a potential legal challenge to the bill’s language, DeLeo called it a “great question,” before deferring to state Rep. Ronald Mariano, the House majority leader, who was standing next to him.
Mariano said he believes the bill passes constitutional muster, noting a separate case where residents in East Boston voted separately on whether to allow a casino in their neighborhood.
“We think it was fair that the cities and towns who voted no would not have to go back and fund another town-wide initiative to re-enforce the vote,” said Mariano, a lead negotiator on the bill. “We think it’s practical.”