Mayor, Council to discuss pot license Even though recreational marijuana isn’t even legal in state, workshop will gauge interest in pot shops

WOONSOCKET — Never mind that recreational marijuana isn’t legal – at least not yet – Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt says all the buzz about the possibility is generating inquiries to staffers at City Hall about licensing.

As a result, the mayor has scheduled a workshop with the City Council to gauge the panel’s willingness to grant such permits, should the General Assembly open the doors to recreational pot shops.

She says she hasn’t taken a position on the issue herself, but would support the council either way. The point of her inquiry, she said, is to gain some clarity from councilors – the licensing authority – so that she can advise staffers at City Hall whether talks with potential licensees are worth pursuing.

“We don’t want to waste our time and spin our wheels if the council wants nothing to do with it,” Baldelli-Hunt said. “Whatever the council wants is fine, but let’s find out so we’re not wasting the staff’s time.”

But Council President Daniel Gendron said it’s probably too soon to have such a conversation. At the moment, he says, it involves too many hypotheticals, the most iffy of which is whether the General Assembly intends to legalize recreational cannabis, as neighboring Massachusetts has.

“I’m anxious to hear what she has to say,” said the council president. “Maybe she’s got something that will entice me to look into it further.”

He added, “I don’t like dealing in hypotheticals. I like dealing in facts.”

The mayor asked the city clerk to list

“discussion regarding marijuana dispensary license” as one of several items she wants to bring up with the City Council during a workshop in City Hall at 7 p.m. Monday. The mayor said there was no specific proposal that prompted her to make the request, merely a number of inquiries about how the city might respond to an application for a license.

So far, neither House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello nor Senate President Dominick Ruggerio have committed to supporting the legalization of recreational marijuana, a business that’s blooming on the city’s doorstep. It was Gov. Gina Raimondo who pushed the issue to the fore, unveiling a legislative proposal recently that would establish a regulatory framework for legalizing retail sales of recreational marijuana. Like Massachusetts, the measure would contain an “opt-out” provision for local communities.

Many in Massachusetts have done just that, holding local referendums to let citizens choose whether retail marijuana should be sold within their borders by majority vote. Others, including nearby Blackstone, Millville and Uxbridge, where a combined six permits for retail sales are in some phase of the approval process before the Bay State’s Cannabis Control Commission, have not opted out. The first of the stores, Caroline’s Cannabis, located at 640 Douglas St. (Route 16) in Uxbridge, is expected to open next month.

In addition to the discussion about marijuana licensing, the mayor also wants to talk to the council about a money-saving plan to switch over some of the city’s ornamental streetlights to LED fixtures and low-interest loans to small businesses from the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank.

The council has several additional items on the agenda up for discussion, including a new plan for recording and livestreaming public meetings on digital platforms, and software options for managing the agendas of public meetings.