PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — The Presque Isle City Council voted Wednesday to approve Jonathan Martin for a health care cannabis license, earning him the city’s seventh cannabis retailer.
The city’s listing of cannabis firms has expanded speedily in less than two decades, with 4 working now and 3 more on the way.
Councilors first authorised the licensing of marijuana stores in January 2020, seeking to faucet into the expanding sector for its economic added benefits. Now the query is irrespective of whether just about every of them will get ample business to continue to be feasible.
“I imagine there is going to be a working day of reckoning, where only the lean and indicate are heading to endure,” Mike Cyr, owner of Bradley’s Citgo and Car Wash and a number of real estate ventures, claimed. “I do not mind it, due to the fact the company is good for the city, however quicker or afterwards there is only likely to be so much pie to go around.”
“People require to know that this is not just an limitless resource of funds,” explained Metropolis Councilor Craig Environmentally friendly. “All these merchants have different specialties, but even so, thanks to the economics of it, I don’t feel that they will all be open up in, say, five years.”
The town ordinance legalized the sale and cultivation of pot within just city limitations. Presque Isle’s first health care cannabis dispensary, Northern Maine Flower, opened in 2020, and councilors authorised the city’s initial retail marijuana store, Whole Bloom Hashish, in April of this year.
The town ordinance specifies that shops can only be positioned inside of right zoning restrictions, and are unable to be inside 1,000 toes of a pre-present community or private college.
Councilor Kevin Freeman stated the city also set up a certain quantity of spacing concerning the businesses. He reiterated that the council authorized the ordinance mainly because of the economic increase it could provide to the area.
“I come to feel like if we don’t do it in this town, the other towns will do it,” Freeman claimed. “I felt like this was an chance to get some earnings, targeted visitors and employment in the city.”
Some shops are undeterred by the competitors.
“We have generally been welcoming to every person,” reported Northern Maine Flower proprietor Preston Tracey. “We want to help people today know that this is not terrible, but the present stigma surely hurts it.”
Other retailers are a lot more hesitant about the improved competition and fret there may possibly not be ample consumers to go all around.
“I am not fearful of level of competition, but too a lot is not excellent,” Joe Pelkey, owner of Star City Wellness, mentioned.
“Down in Bangor they are dropping like flies, and the larger outlets come in and take above. There is only so significantly to go about, and I feel there requires to be a limit on that. At a single place it will become also a great deal,” Pelkey mentioned.
But Presque Isle’s town ordinance for the sale of health-related and leisure marijuana has no established pointers or guidelines for how a lot of of these enterprises can run inside of the metropolis. There are also no boundaries as to the variety of retail small business, be it a tobacco shop, cafe or bookstore.
While all of the outlets at the moment open have been efficiently complying with the principles, councilors mentioned they have listened to two primary parts of problem from inhabitants. The very first is retailer locations. Given that the companies are mostly concentrated on the Most important Avenue strip, people stress that marijuana stores are “taking over” that region.
Even though quite a few concede the herb has medical added benefits, many are “caught up” in the recreational use, councilor Craig Environmentally friendly said. Inexperienced mentioned he had read concerns from inhabitants that due to the fact cannabis is a drug, that may possibly give individuals the concept that drugs are Alright.
The council talked about keeping a public discussion board at the December assembly about the city’s marijuana ordinance, letting residents the possibility to voice their concerns and issues and for all to focus on designs for the future of the companies.