Public Participation

Transcript (~16 min @ 11:08)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 10:23 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: Good evening. The hour being 7.30 on Monday, March 4th, 2019. The Committee on Appropriations of the Melrose Board of Aldermen is called to order. This is a committee of the whole. I am the chair, Alderman Kate Lipper-Garabedian, and present with me tonight are committee members vice chair Bob Boisselle and committee members alderman Peter Mortimer alderman John Tramontozzi alderman Frank Wright alderman Monica Medeiros alderman Scott Forbes alderman Mike Zwirko alderman Manisha Bewtra alderman Sean McMaster and president Jennifer Lemmerman this meeting is being recorded in accordance with the open meeting law it can be viewed on MMTV as as well as the City of Melrose website. It's also streaming live on MMTV, and I believe there may be some media in the audience tonight videotaping this for the purposes of local news this evening. Is there a motion to open the floor for public comment? So moved, Madam Chair. So moved by Alderman Mortimer, seconded by Vice Chair Boisselle. Any all in favor? Aye. Opposed? This is the portion of our meeting where members of the public are able to come forward make a comment to us on any agenda item I would let everyone know tonight that we are going to have to stop at 745 to break for the full board meeting because there are a couple agenda items that we need to address in short order including a public hearing at 8 o'clock on a particular National Grid petition and then as soon as those are over we will recess and come back to the Appropriations Committee where we can continue public comment to the degree we don't get through it in the next 15 minutes so if you would like to come forward at this time please make sure to put your name and address on this piece of paper and please speak into the microphone so folks at home can hear you

▶ 12:25 John McLaughlin: thank you so much good evening my name is John McLaughlin I reside at 41 North Avenue I come here tonight in support of the order that would restrict the marijuana sales medical and retail to the route 99 corridor I am aware as everybody in Melrose is at this point that Melrose was a community that voted in favor of legalizing marijuana. The vote was 51% in favor and 48% roughly opposed. I was one of the 48% that was opposed. It was basically a difference of about 500 votes. That means that in the city of Melrose, about 8,000 of your constituents were opposed to legalizing marijuana in the state of Massachusetts. However, I do understand that the state law that came into being after the vote was made was that if you voted as a community to legalize marijuana, then you had to have a retail store and a medical facility in your community. Personally, I think that if the public had known that we would be talking about putting a medical marijuana facility on Main Street, had they voted to support it, I think that the vote probably would have been different. I don't think anybody really had any concept of what was going to happen when that vote was made.

▶ 13:43 John McLaughlin: However, the law being the law, I think that Melrose came up with a great solution. Put a medical marijuana facility in a retail facility on Route 99, and that way you respect the voters who supported the ballot initiative, and we have a convenient place with parking in a commercial district where those members of the community that wish to purchase marijuana products can but by restricting it to route 99 i think you also respect the wishes and the belief of the roughly 8 000 people who did not want to see medical marijuana or retail marijuana for sale in massachusetts i think that the impact of the legalization of marijuana is something that we'll all watch over the coming years and i think the jury's still out on it we don't know if it's going to increase crime. We don't know if it's going to cause traffic and congestion problems or be a gateway drug. However, what we do know is that medically speaking, the entire medical community believes that medical marijuana, I'm sorry, that smoking marijuana is harmful to adolescents and children. That there are long-term effects from regular marijuana use that they don't recover from and it's more of a danger at a young age than alcohol is i think that the state of massachusetts also believes that where there are retail and medical marijuana facilities there should be a buffer zone around schools vacuous centers and public places and we saw that in the planning board's documentation i would say that for years the city of melrose has used its main street district as a family gathering place whether it's been the summer stroll the halloween trick-or-treating the victorian fair there's always family activity on main street of norris so if it's not appropriate to be around schools it's certainly not appropriate to be on main street of norris it's a regular family venue many of us here are parents and we've gone through the difficult stage of raising our children through their teenage years with the concerns and the issues that come up around alcohol and drug use and I think that it's tough and as a parent of my house it was one of the most difficult things that we had to deal with as parents and the goal is is to put it off for a year put it off for two years to get them to be older before they take that first drink and hopefully they become adults and they can make a better decision and I think that for those of us who haven't been there yet your day is coming and you'll feel the pressure and the heat and I think that by allowing

▶ 16:29 John McLaughlin: retail marijuana in downtown Melrose we're sending the wrong message because I think that it's a harmful product for children and it shouldn't be where kids can see it and the longest the longer that we can delay it and put it off I think the better for the community so I would hope that you take I think a reasonable position allow a retail facility in Melrose for those people who want it but keep it out of the downtown area for those people who think that it would be a bad decision in the neighborhood and particularly for parents that are trying to educate their kids on the dangers of drug use and alcohol at a

▶ 17:20 Speaker 2: young age thank you thank you good evening my name is Janice Newell-Bissicks I live at 40 Glen Street I'm a lifelong resident of Massachusetts I've experienced a dramatic shift in my stance on cannabis since my 85 year old dad found relief finally from his terrible pain using medical marijuana here's it just a few things I have more that I'll submit but I want to keep it brief a few things that I've learned in my two years training to be a holistic cannabis practitioner cannabis has been used medicinally for over 6,000 years it was prescribed by doctors for ever they had they had it in their medical bag it was in the pharmacopeia from 1850 to 1942 it wasn't until the early 1900s that not because of medical or scientific reasons mostly due to political and racial reasons that it became outlawed the New England Journal of Medicine has asked that it be rescheduled they see the benefit the Institute of Medicine in 1999 said it had great potential for different conditions and it's not a gateway drug it is actually referred to as an exit herb it has been shown to help people reduce their use of opioids 2016 study found that giving cannabis to opioid addicts resulted in a 44% decrease in opioid use states with medical marijuana programs have a 25 to 31 percent drop in opioid overdose I fully support adult use marijuana cannabis dispensary and mess in mess in Melrose anywhere outside of the buffer zone some concerns that people people have expressed an increase in crime I think the the crime comes with illegal drugs not with a regulated dispensary where you can get product that has actually been vetted would it bring in the wrong crowd I hope they're not talking about my 75 year old client in Melrose who suffered 11 spinal fractures who is in severe pain and uses CBD and cannabis and it's interesting to note that people aren't judged for having a glass of wine with dinner but and I have friends who don't drink alcohol and have an occasional puff on a cannabis cigarette and they are judged because of old stigmas that many of us carry I it actually took my dad using this for me to change my personal stigma against cannabis. What about the kids? A multi-year survey of 170,000 people in 38 countries concluded that legalizing cannabis does not promote teen use. There are plenty of options to buy weed in Melrose. Just ask any teenager. I don't condone the non-medical use of cannabis by kids, but let's educate them on the safe use when they become of age. It's the same as what we do with alcohol. the dispensaries are very tightly controlled you can't get in if you're under 21 you have to show your license it's it's it's a bit of a rigamarole so we aren't gonna have kids walking in and out and they actually look more like an Apple Store than a smoke shop with hippies up front and I don't think what any of us have seen any drunk people hanging out and outside of Beacon Hill wine with a brown paper bag that doesn't happen with dispensaries either people are more likely to walk out with a cane or a walker than smoking a joint. Traffic. Yeah, Lester, when the first shop opened in all of Massachusetts, it was a traffic nightmare. As more and more shops open, that's not going to be as big a deal. Salem didn't have the issues. I've spoken to several downtown shop owners who said they would welcome the foot traffic that a dispensary would bring, and we would all benefit from the tax revenue. I just hope that residents will be open-minded about this potential new business in Melrose, and it's quite possible that they or someone that they love may need this medicine someday and will be thankful not to travel too far to get it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

▶ 21:56 Speaker 2: Good evening. My name is Radha Frolickstein. I'm not a resident of Melrose. I'm actually a business owner downtown Melrose, Radha Boutique, and I'm not here to speak for or against a dispensary. I'm here to raise some issue or potential awareness that you may or may have already considered that may impact our downtown businesses. We all agree that Melrose downtown is really a very nice downtown that many local surrounding towns are envious of how great of our downtown is so we would like to keep at that uh for me um my biggest issue is uh yes traffic and some might think that is going to increase um uh for traffic downtown i actually think it will create the opposite effect um first of all we live in meadows surrounded by condensed town that do not have dispensaries at this current time so we're going to be a destination I'm just guessing one in every fifth household will be using cannabis or marijuana so they will be going to to a point of destination to a Melrose and now we're gonna have some traffic issue and and I'm not sure how much parking spaces will be available at the dispensary I'm guessing 15 minutes these people will not have a devil my my estimation and my fear that they will go to dispensaries and do their business and leave they will not leave and then drive again in traffic go downtown look for parking spaces to use our other businesses and and and restaurants so maybe here and there somebody might want to come down so if we think that it's going to increase traffic my personal opinion I don't think it will it will actually deter people for some time until gets more regulated to actually avoid coming to downtown because it's it's you know accessibility of our downtown of regular residents so that will affect our businesses negatively that's my opinion also yes we're going to have a revenue for for having a dispensary but the fact that we will be having dealing with the police detail and all of the issue I'm sure you all consider that but that will really create not so much revenue for the for you know city of Melrose that's something that I'm sure you all consider that I would if you're gonna have to authorize the one of these dispensary please do not authorize to immediately because it's hard it's better to in my opinion better to have one perhaps see how it goes and you can always decide to have another one once you authorize to you can't tell another business now it's time for you to close but we just we figured this was actually not a great idea so I will strongly discourage having to have to dispensary on each end of our downtown meaning no matter where you're coming to Melrose you're going to have a traffic jam and that is going to not be impacting our small little shop downtown positively but you know it's what makes sort of one town phenomenal it's a it's it's diversity of small shops uh like mine like hourglass like all of these little shops and places that the melrose is so amazing that's the reason i opened my shop there for all that diversity acquaint and and and how i'm excited to be there as a business um you also um i i believe that that you can consider perhaps having like a Salem did by appointment only at the beginning you can always change that rule but you can't take the rules away so I would really strongly recommend for you guys to consider those options before you make a permanent decision that may be great for town but why just do it all at once also you have to consider that increase in certain illnesses that will provide chronic use of pot users that have been um in emergency rooms that i just was reading i it was i'm not an expert in medical but i just saw a cnn report of colorado increased emergency is melrose hospital and is our hospitals equipped that is that going to be later on a cost for our town there's all these options that i really want you to consider before you make the permanent decision thank you very much

▶ 27:08 Scott M. Forbes: thank you yes madam chair at this moment is 745 so if we want to opt out for that recess I would make a recommendation to to recess this committee second okay

▶ 27:18 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: there is a motion to recess the committee to take account of our full board business made by alderman Forbes seconded by president Lemmerman all in favor any opposed so we will recess and we will come back together on this issue after the full board has a chance to meet