NORWAY — Members of the Medical Marijuana Grow Facility Committee said Thursday they are leaning toward asking the Board of Selectmen for an extension to the 180-day moratorium on medical grow facilities.

The committee held a public forum Thursday evening to give residents a chance to share ideas on what they would like to see in an ordinance or other land-use regulations.

However, only a few people attended the forum.

Selectman and committee member Thomas Curtis said that it was “discouraging to see so few people attend this meeting.”

“I think it needs to be illustrated that we’re making progress toward an end, and that we’ve made significant advances,” Curtis said.

“But without the public’s input, there’s very little we can do other than rubber stamp what we think is correct.”

Dennis Gray, a committee member and chairman of the Planning Board, said “resident comment” sheets will be left at the front desk of the Norway Town Office for residents who want to pick them up, fill them out and drop them off at a later time.

The comment sheet contains questions that the committee asked the town attorney, such as whether the town could limit the size or number of caregivers within a facility or whether a fee could be charged for facilities.

He said that the committee was interested in feedback from residents on the same questions given the town attorney.

Town Manager Dennis Lajoie, who serves on the committee, said that the committee has met “three or four times so far” for the purpose of “trying to develop appropriate land-use regulations and ordinances concerning medical marijuana grow facilities.”

He said that the committee was formed after residents and town officials expressed concern about the number of proposals for medical marijuana facilities in the downtown area.

Lajoie said that the committee was “leaning toward asking the Board of Selectmen to extend the moratorium for another 180 days,” though they were waiting to get feedback from the public to see if we can “do work before the moratorium expires” in April.

Gray said that “if we knew how many people were in our local area that needed the product, we could figure out how many (facilities) we’d need to grow it.” 

“But that’s privileged information, so there’s no way of knowing,” Gray said. “We don’t know how many people are having that need taken care of, so trying to pick a number (of facilities) is kind of hard.”

Resident Mary Lou St. John, who serves on the Planning Board, said that she would be in favor of “limiting the number of facilities.”

“We don’t need one on every corner,” she said. “I also think charging a fee would be a good thing.”

Lajoie said that town attorney Mary Costigan told the committee that “any fee assessed (to a medical marijuana facility)” needs to prove that the facility would be an administrative burden to the town.

“An example would be if our fire chief had to do checks more often than normal,” Lajoie said. “If that burden weren’t there, a fee could be considered an impermissible tax. She said we could require a licensing fee, though it could be susceptible to challenge.”

mdaigle@sunmediagroup.net