A proposed medical marijuana dispensary slated for Berks County will relocate after officials demanded a special tax, deemed a “host benefit fee,” that the state said could make the medicine unaffordable for patients. Another dispensary, planned for Delaware County, has also been sent packing, after the Upper Darby zoning board retroactively changed an ordinance and denied the dispensary a variance.
In the first case, Franklin Bioscience-Penn LLC had won a permit from the Pennsylvania Department of Health in June to open in a former Kinko’s north of Reading in Muhlenberg Township. After the permit was granted to the Denver-based company, the township demanded that Franklin turn over 5 percent of its receipts.
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In Upper Darby, AES Compassionate Care had planned to open in the Highland Park neighborhood. In March, it had been given the green light to set up shop in a section zoned C1, where pharmacies and medical offices, among others, are permitted, said lawyer Ted Flowers of Moriconi Flowers, a boutique firm that represents medical marijuana clients. By the time AES received a dispensary permit in June, however, the township had rewritten its zoning code to relegate all medical marijuana facilities to industrial areas zoned C4. On Aug. 28, after the zoning board denied it a variance, AES said it would seek another site.
