Blackstone cannabis community outreach meeting Thursday
BLACKSTONE — A retail cannabis company has rescheduled a community outreach meeting on its proposed cannabis dispensary to Thursday.
The original meeting on Jan. 24 was canceled due to a town-wide power outage. The re-scheduled meeting on Thursday will be held at 5 p.m. at the Millerville Mens Club, 8 Lloyd St., where representatives of DDM Sales, Inc. will discuss its plans to put an adultuse retail cannabis dispensary in at nearby 1 Lloyd St., the former Bell Liquors building located between the Millerville Men’s Club and Stop & Shop plaza.
Blackstone attorney Christopher Ryan, representing DDM Sales, Inc., says the community meeting will include a full-blown Power Point presentation focusing on everything from parking to security and a team of experts in the medical and recreational cannabis industries, including a doctor from Harvard Medical School.
The session will be televised on local cable access television.
Outreach meetings are required by the state’s Cannabis Control Commission and must be held before any local
permitting begins.
A Massachusetts domestic profit corporation filed on Sept. 21, 2018, DDM Sales, Inc. lists two principals on record – Rekhaben V. and Vishnubhai B. Patel, both from Wrentham. The principals own six different businesses, including a Fairfield Inn by Marriott.
According to Ryan, the corporation has filed a license with the CCC and is also in the process of securing securing a host community agreement with Blackstone.
Prospective marijuana businesses are required to secure host community agreements before they can apply for a license from the state. Under the law, local officials can also set the tax rate on marijuana sold within their city or town’s limits, up to 3 percent. Unlike medical marijuana, recreational cannabis will be taxed. The state plans to levy a 6.25 percent sales tax and 10.75 percent excise tax, and leave to the discretion of municipal officials an option to levy the local tax up to 3 percent.
According to Ryan, DDM Sales is proposing to establish a strictly cannabis sales fa- cility, which would purchase marijuana from nearby grow houses. Products will include THC-infused edible products. Up to 13.1 percent of all marijuana-related transactions involve edible products, making them the second most popular type of cannabis product sold in the U.S.
The proposed Blackstone business will be located in the front portion of the building, which currently houses Diamond Overhead Door in the back.
If eventually approved, the dispensary would have state-of-the art electronic security and fire alarm systems; uninterruptible power supplies; 24/7 monitoring; a fenced-in perimeter; outside lighting; and private security details.
Unlike a liquor store where patrons can walk in and grab a product off the shelf, cannabis dispensaries are highly controlled, Ryan said. When entering the building, customers are are required to wait in a secure room pending security checks. Only then will a customer be buzzed into the actual dispensary.
If approved by the town, the dispensary would hire Blackstone residents, especially Blackstone veterans, he said.