PARIS — A public hearing on a proposal to impose a six-month moratorium on the establishment of medical marijuana dispensaries attracted little in the way of comments on Monday.
No one spoke during the hearing, which was scheduled before Monday’s regular selectmen’s meeting. During the citizens’ comments portion of the meeting later on, however, resident Pat Pelletier addressed the topic. Pelletier, a business teacher at the Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School, approached the Planning Board last month with applications to start two medical marijuana facilities but later withdrew the submissions.
The ordinance to establish a 180-day moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries is based on one that was proposed and ultimately rejected in the town of Eliot. It states that the town does not have adequate ordinances to regulate such facilities, and seeks more time to determine how to address the issue.
Maine voters decided in 1999 to authorize the prescription and limited possession of marijuana for medical purposes.
In November, voters also favored a question allowing facilities licensed through the Department of Health and Human Services to distribute the drug to people with prescriptions for it.
In the first year, DHHS said it would approve a maximum of one dispensary for each of the state’s eight public health districts. The dispensary license for the district encompassing Oxford, Androscoggin and Franklin counties went to a site in Wilton.
Pelletier proposed using part of the Perfect Stitch Embroidery building on James Road to cultivate marijuana and establishing a dispensary in a storefront in the Cornwall Shopping Plaza. Pelletier said she was not able to meet the application deadline set by the state. She said that the dispensaries were favored by two-thirds of voters at the election.
“I just hope that you will keep these people in mind when you write your ordinances, if that is what you choose to do,” she said.
Pelletier also criticized Selectman Ted Kurtz for a remark at the last meeting, in which he said Pelletier had $400,000 in backing for her proposal and said it “just makes you wonder who’s after what.” Pelletier said she thought the comment was inappropriate, and that her backers stood to invest only $115,000.
Kurtz said he may have misread a newspaper account about the amount of money backing the proposal.
“I in no way intended to impugn your motives,” he said.
Kurtz said that due to the small size of Paris, the establishment of one of the first dispensaries in the state would have been a major event. He said he felt the town needed to proceed slowly with the issue.
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