HOULTON, Maine — Two days after the Houlton Town Council approved a new ordinance aimed at regulating commercial sales of recreational marijuana, one of its members has come forward to explain her stance.
On Monday, July 24, the Houlton Town Council spent more than an hour listening to 24 individuals’ views on recreational marijuana, before approving a new town ordinance aimed at regulating where commercial facilities can set up within the town.
The council voted 4-1 in favor of the document, with Rosa McNally the lone councilor opposing the plan. McNally said Wednesday afternoon she wished she had done more to convince her colleagues to send the matter to the voters.
McNally initially supported the ordinance, which was first approved Feb. 21 with little input from the public, but after hearing from several individuals opposed to the town’s plans to capitalize on the drug, she changed her mind.
“Hearing more and more from the citizens, I realized it [the vote] was much bigger than just the seven of us sitting on the council,” she said. “While I personally support this ordinance, I understand and can see more clearly now the views of citizens who are coming forth and stating their lack of support. I wonder if we moved a little too fast?”
McNally voiced her concerns at the council meeting, but her peers didn’t share her feelings on the subject. She was also the lone councilor to state the matter should go to a public referendum.
“I know I publicly stated that I didn’t want to stand in the way of development,” she said. “However, this is a controversial business. Our community voted over twice the amount of votes against the Maine Referendum to legalize recreational marijuana. And while I recognized and researched that, I didn’t say anything about it at the time because there was such overwhelming support to move forward.”
While the measure passed at the statewide level, locally the measure failed at the polls by nearly a two-to-one margin. Houlton residents voted 935 in favor of recreational marijuana, while 1,762 opposed legalizing it.
“I believe I let the community down by not even voicing that concern,” she said. “We did not discuss this as a consideration against moving forward. It’s one thing for a community to understand and accept that now within their state, it is legal for citizens to grow their own recreational marijuana. We can’t ‘undo’ the state’s vote. It’s quite another when the community opposed the legalization of marijuana period, then realizes their town government passed an ordinance to allow recreational marijuana commercial facilities.”
Back in February, the town received a letter of support signed by several prominent business leaders, which McNally said swayed the council into moving forward with its plans.
Under the new ordinance, growing facilities and retail stores will be allowed in designated areas of Houlton’s Industrial Park, located near the Houlton International Airport. The town owns several empty parcels of land in the industrial park which can be sold to developers. Strict guidelines will be in place for security needed at these facilities, and air quality will also be monitored.
McNally also expressed concerns that the town did not research whether their actions would impact federal grants it receives.
“With the job that I do working with federal contracts, I started thinking there could be federal restrictions,” she said. “There is more that we don’t know than we do know. Conceptually, could this be a great economic boost for the town? Possibly. But when it’s a controversial business, I would have preferred to see this go to referendum. That way we could say we followed a democratic process.”
