The Somerville City Council is looking into various issues governed by the current Adult Use Marijuana Ordinance, including disclosure of ownership and the removal of the local preference provision.

By Jim Clark

At the latest meeting of the City of Somerville City Council, orders were put forward seeking to clarify and refine the current Adult Use Marijuana Ordinance.

One order asks the City Solicitor to draft proposed language to amend the ordinance to require, in any application, full disclosure of all ownership interests, including names and percentage interest of all owners or shareholders in LLCs, corporations, or any other ownership entities.

Regarding the order, Ward 5 Council Mark Niedergang said, “In the applications for the marijuana licenses there are often LLCs, corporations. We really don’t know who’s behind these entities, and I think it’s really important for the Licensing Commission, the Zoning Board and the public to understand who are really the owners of these potential licensees.”

Niedergang said that he would like the matter to be presented to the Legislative Matters Committee for further consideration. “I think it’s actually time to look at the ordinance that we passed about a year and a half ago and see about some possible revisions to it,” said the Councilor.

The order was subsequently referred to the Legislative Matters Committee.

Ward 5 Councilor Mark Niedergang is leading the effort to revise and improve the Adult Use Marijuana Ordinance.

In a related matter, an order was put forward asking that the City Council consider amending the Adult Use Marijuana Ordinance to remove Somerville residency as a qualifier for being a priority applicant in Group A, in order to prioritize Economic Empowerment applicants.
Speaking again in favor of this order, Councilor Niedergang said, “When we worked on this ordinance and passed it, I believe that the Council’s priority was to enable economic empowerment applicants to get licenses. And so far of the first three that have been sent forward by the Mayor’s Advisory Committee, two of them are local business owners who are quite well off. Wonderful people. Nothing negative to say about them. But very prosperous and successful of businessmen. And the third is a combination of an economic empowerment applicant and very successful local business owners.”

“So all three of the licenses so far that have been allowed to go forward by the Mayor’s Advisory Committee, and that have appeared before the Licensing Commission, basically have very strong connections to prosperous local businessmen,” Niedergang continued. “And that’s not what I think we intended.”

Niedergang stated that he wants to review the way the ordinance was structured and discuss whether the local preference should be removed from the ordinance. He said that it seems to be going to businessmen who who are not victims of the war on drugs and ho do not really need the economic advantages that a marijuana retail license confers upon them.

As with the previous order, Niedergang requested this to be referred to the Legislative Matters Committee, which was subsequently approved by the Council.

An additional related order was put forward asking the Executive Director of the Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development list the members of the Marijuana Advisory Committee on the Somerville City website in the interest of transparency and for the public to see who is making decisions about which applications for retail marijuana licenses are being permitted to move forward. This item was approved and the request was forwarded to the OSPCD.