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 “This community voted in favor. The mayor was in favor. As a state representative, I was in favor. And we didn’t want to make it more diffi- cult. It was challenging enough with the regula- tions coming down from the state. We saw this as an industry that could take over some vacant and underutilized buildings, and that’s what informed how we went forward.”
not always been well-received, and that was one of several issues addressed last month by a multi-faceted cannabis bill passed overwhelm- ingly by the state Senate and House of Repre- sentatives and signed into law by Gov. Charlie Baker.
Among its main elements, the law clarifies the host-community agreement (HCA) process
“Communities of color across our country have historically been criminalized, prosecuted, and left out of the conversation in regards to cannabis legalization,” state Sen. Adam Gomez said. “When cannabis was legalized in Massa- chusetts, those same communities continued to be barred from the conversation table and left behind, with historic barriers preventing them
“It is incomprehensible that anyone who was charged with a marijuana-related offense still has that on their record in our state, especially when you can drive down the street to a dispensary to buy the same product that that person was arrested for.”
from growing small busi- nesses in meaningful ways. The legislation passed by the legislature will remove those barriers.”
The law also expedites
the expungement process, Gomez noted. For individuals seeking to expunge a record for previous offenses that are
   That has indeed occurred. “We’re very excit- ed about the investment that has happened
— tens of millions invested in these downtown buildings because of cannabis, and 500 jobs that didn’t exist three years ago,” Vega said, not- ing that the cannabis enterprises themselves aren’t an endgame, but a way to spur even more investment.
“What do you do with 500 people? You make sure they’re going to your concerts, going to your restaurants and events, utilizing your local food trucks. And then there’s the ancillary busi- nesses to the cannabis industry; how do we lure them to the city and make it even more benefi- cial for companies to do business in Holyoke?”
Other cities and towns have, to varying degrees, told similar stories. But the host-com- munity agreements they’ve put forward have
by authorizing the CCC to prioritize social-equi- ty program businesses and economic-empow- erment priority applicants for expedited review.
It also clarifies the scope of HCAs and adds new criteria, mandating that no host-communi- ty agreement can include a community impact fee that is beyond the business’s eighth year of operation, the community-impact fee must be reasonably related to the actual costs required to operate a cannabis business in a community, the CCC must review and approve each HCA as part of the license application and renewal pro- cess, and all host communities must establish procedures and policies to encourage full par- ticipation in the regulated marijuana industry by people from communities that have been disproportionately harmed by marijuana prohi- bition and enforcement.
now decriminalized, the law requires the court to order the expungement of the record within 30 days of the request and expunge records for possession or distribution of marijuana based on the now-legal amount.
“It is incomprehensible that anyone who was charged with a marijuana-related offense still has that on their record in our state, espe- cially when you can drive down the street to a dispensary to buy the same product that that person was arrested for,” Gomez said. “I was proud to support this legislation and can’t wait to see cannabis businesses run by BIPOC own- ers flourish as a result.”
Cannabis
Continued on page 11
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Multiple start dates for each training listed above. Please visit hcc.edu/canna to learn more information.
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FEATURE
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