LIVERMORE FALLS — The owner of a medical marijuana retail store and cultivation facility is disputing the Select Board’s Aug. 6 decision not to renew his medical marijuana licenses.

Dana Cummings, owner of DEAT medical marijuana retail store and cultivation facility, doing business as Sugar Kush USA, said Wednesday morning that he plans to appeal the board’s vote against the renewals.

The retail store is on Pleasant Street, and the cultivation facility is behind it in the old Primary School building he owns on Baldwin Street.

Cummings said Tuesday that he watched the livestream of the meeting provided by Mt. Blue Community Access TV while he was in California due to a shared parental custody agreement.

“I don’t want misinformation, miscommunication,” he said. “My grow has been going. I’ve got a full crop. I have purposely left my storefront shut down because I’ve been working with code enforcement and the police chief to make sure whoever I had working for me there meets all their needs and wants. My store license is still in effect until Oct. 1. I could open tomorrow and throw anybody in there, but I have chosen not to because of their request for me to have them be able to vet who I have in there.”

Code Enforcement Officer Roland Castonguay confirmed Wednesday morning that he was working with Cummings.

“I’ve just been trying to do everything to make everybody happy,” Cummings said Tuesday. “It backfired completely on me. I am the one losing money every day anyway. I just know that my competitors here in town, if I have to go through this process again they are going to do everything they can to fight me reopening.”

The Select Board voted 3-2 not to renew licenses for two medical marijuana facilities.

Chairperson William Kenniston and Selectman Jeffrey Bryant voted in favor of renewing the licenses; Selectmen Jim Long, John Barbioni and Bruce Peary were opposed.

If the licenses had been renewed, the motion would have required Cummings to inform his employees of the Marijuana Ordinance’s strict rules. If if was determined the rules weren’t being followed, revoking the license was also part of the motion.

Town Manager Carrie Castonguay said the applications were complete and had the required town officials’ signatures. “I would recommend that you sign it with conditions,” she noted. “There have been complaints over the last year about some of his personnel.”

Castonguay said later that complaints were about an employee who was medicating outside the store and people parking where prohibited in front of the store.

At the meeting, Long said he has gone past the store and it has been closed the past six months. “I looked inside and there is essentially nothing in there,” he said. He questioned giving a license to an empty storefront.

If the licenses aren’t renewed, the process has to begin again, Castonguay said.

The ordinance doesn’t say the business has to be in operation to have a license granted, Long said.

Castonguay said the code enforcement officer told her Cummings had a person in mind to help run the store, but had not yet received requested information about that person.

“I would say (the grow facility) was in operation about five months ago,” Police Chief Abe Haroon said. “Then there was a fallout with the staff member and they think some of the equipment was dismantled, probably lost some of the harvest as a result.”

Castonguay noted Cummings is only in Livermore Falls part of the time.

“It is kind of hard to run a business when you are not here,” she said. The code officer had mentioned he’s not around, and the board has the authority to close places if things aren’t going according to the ordinance, she added.

Cummings is not in violation of the ordinance, Castonguay confirmed.

The original application states the store would operate 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; the renewal says there is no change, Long said. “He hasn’t been operating for a long time, so he basically didn’t state it correctly.”