DANVERS — Despite pleas by some to zone rather than ban recreational marijuana establishments in town, Special Town Meeting voted Monday night to prohibit them in Danvers.
Town Meeting also voted with a loud “aye” to create the town’s first 40R Smart Growth district when it voted to create what is called the “Maple Street Traditional Neighborhood Development Overlay.”
The new overlay on an existing industrial zone will allow a compact mix of shops, restaurants, housing and other uses on 17 acres of mostly industrial zoned land on Maple, Hobart, Locust and North Putnam streets, in an area adjacent to the downtown.
The issue of recreational marijuana was addressed in articles 3, 4 and 5, and while these articles were considered separately by the 107 Town Meeting members who made up a quorum.
STATE BY STATE: Massachusetts Cannabis News
Articles 3 and 4, which both passed, banned recreational marijuana in both zoning and general bylaws, respectively. The articles will have no impact on medical marijuana.
“They are coordinated to some extent,” said David DeLuca, an attorney with the town’s Town Counsel firm of Murphy, Hesse, Toomey and Lehane about the three articles.
The zoning and general bylaw were essentially the same, DeLuca said. The ability for the town to prohibit recreational marijuana was the result of the passage of a state ballot initiative legalizing it in November 2016, a measure which Danvers voters narrowly rejected, but which was approved statewide.
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