‘Cannabis is here ... it’s not going away’
Residents in Southington are pushing for a public vote on recreational pot sales
Frustrated by local officials who want to keep recreational marijuana shops out of Southington, Stacey Dolan is campaigning to get 4,000 residents to demand a public vote on the idea in November.
As a moderator of a popular community Facebook page, Dolan has organized a team of volunteers to collect petition signatures at local festivals, along the rail trail and even at special Thursday evening “drive through” gatherings at the local drive-in theater.
“This is a deep-rooted issue where people in town are very divided,” Dolan said Friday. “We need to have conversations about it, not a knee-jerk reaction.”
So far Southington’s is the only high-profile petition drive to get underway since Connecticut legalized marijuana in June and left towns to individually decide where — or whether — to permit stores.
Officials in a few communities, including Prospect and Watertown, have decided to ban such businesses altogether, while
Danbury, Waterbury, Canton, Thomaston and many others are holding moratoriums to get time to study the economic, traffic, public health and social impacts of cannabis stores.
Newington’s plan and zoning commission on Wednesday night will conduct a hearing on whether the local medical marijuana retailer should be allowed to sell recreational marijuana too.
The owners of the Fine Fettle Dispensary on the Berlin Turnpike say they’d keep their store as it is but would begin selling to adult recreational users as well.
That type of operation, known as a hybrid dispensary, would still require state review and approval even if the plan and zoning commission grants a special zoning permit.
By state law, the commission cannot arbitrarily reject the application.
In a memo to commissioners, Newington Town Planner Renata Bertotti noted that municipalities without a specific regulation on recreational marijuana stores must “treat the proposed hybrid
retail no different than ‘the most similar use in the zoning district.’ In our case, the most similar use would be a medical marijuana dispensary.”
Southington currently has no medical marijuana shop, and numerous members of the town council have indicated they don’t want a recreational marijuana retailer either. But the new legalization bill gives residents a way to make the decision themselves: A petition signed by more than 10% of registered voters can force a townwide referendum on whether to allow recreational marijuana retailing.
Dolan said it’s important that townspeople — not elected officials — decide how to proceed, so she has spent weeks gathering petition signatures.
“Cannabis is here,” Dolan said. “You can’t ban it. It’s not going away. A lot of people confuse dispensaries with using marijuana. They’re not the same.”
Dolan is emphatic that she’s not promoting marijuana or marijuana sales and that the petition isn’t either.
“This is about letting people vote,” she said. “This is about ‘majority rule.’ Some people tell me it’s partisan, but it isn’t — I have Republicans and Democrats mad at me.”
Dolan assembled a team of about 10 volunteers who set up petition tables along the rail trail on weekend days; they’re usually around the Plantsville section in the early afternoon, then closer to the town center in late afternoon.
They also have a drivethrough signing event every Thursday from 5-8 p.m. at the town-owned drive-in theater, and volunteers also collected names at the recent Italian Festival.
“Half of my volunteers are for [recreational marijuana sales in town], half are against it,” Dolan said. “That’s cool. We think people should get to make the decision.”
The petition says simply, “Shall the sale of recreational marijuana be allowed in the town of Southington?” So far Dolan and her volunteers have collected about 1,000 signatures.
The best response is from going door to door, where she estimates 29 of every 30 people agree to sign. But that’s a time-consuming process, Dolan said.
She has until Aug. 25 to submit 3,186 valid signatures of local voters. The campaign had gotten about 1,100 but had to start over again because the town attorney concluded the language of the petition had to be tightened up.
Dolan said she’s concerned that if Southington permits marijuana retailers, it should put in strict rules to restrict such businesses to locations where they won’t add significant traffic.
“Those are the kinds of conversations we should be having now,” she said. “Where should the town allow people to smoke cannabis? We should be having that conversation too.”