Springfield committee discusses fines for selling pot to minors

Dec. 6, 2018 | Stephanie Trombley
stephanie@thereminder.com

SPRINGFIELD – On Nov. 28, the Committee on Marijuana Regulations hosted a meeting at Springfield City Hall to discuss Chapter 245 of the General Ordinance regarding “Marijuana-Adult Use and Establishments, as well as the Neighborhood Stabilization Fund.

The Committee on Marijuana Regulations, led by Council President Orlando Ramos alongside Councilors Adam Gomez, Kateri Walsh and Justin Hurst led the meeting with an open discussion. The subject of fines for agents and establishments found to be selling marijuana to persons under age 21 was addressed.

Springfield Health and Human Services Commissioner Helen R. Caulton Harris was present to take part in the discussion, weighing in on what she feels would be an appropriate penalty for those selling marijuana to underage consumers. After researching current tobacco control laws, Harris addressed where potential guidelines for marijuana sales reside in current laws.

“The permit that we currently do is a tobacco control permit. What I’ve done is gone through that one because it is a tobacco product and look at what we charge as far as sales of that product is concerned. When we fine people, when we revoke that permit and why we do that. We have that outlined.”

Harris expressed concerns regarding Chapter 245, Section 7, Item 10, which reads, “A Marijuana Operating Permit may be subject to non-renewal if the establishment has sold a marijuana product to a person under the minimum legal sales age two times within the previous permit year and the time to appeal has expired.”

Harris stated, “You never get to the place of revoking that permit. It seems to me that there needs to be some teeth in there around the amount. It’s hefty, but for a person that chronically sells, there should be some consequences to their continuing to sell.  It seems there should be some consequences to being a chronic seller within that year’s period for someone who sells over and over again to someone who is under 21.”

Hurst agreed, responding that Harris’ concerns are “very reasonable.”

Councilor Gomez voiced concerns regarding how fairly the topic is being approached, worrying that the stigma around marijuana is causing a negative impact when making decisions regarding penalties. “I would like to see the penalties mirror something of the alcohol establishments because there’s two sides to this and I don’t know if there’s penalties for a medicinal clinic. I don’t want to feel like we’re persecuting the people at a stronger rate just because something came off prohibition and I just don’t want to say ‘just because it’s marijuana and because it has that negative stereotype from the past, we’re going to stiffen penalties worse off,’ when alcohol kills more people than marijuana. But moving forward, I think that commissioner Caulton has made some clear observations that we need to address pertaining to some of the licensing.”

Councilor Gomez continued, “I would like to see alcohol, tobacco and marijuana more uniform because, if all of them are intake and consumer products that we regulate on the city side, essentially if we do something different because it’s tobacco vs. alcohol, and then marijuana comes and we’re going to do the same thing as tobacco, I know that’s more down the line that we have to figure that out. And if we are going to hold them responsible, we need to change the alcohol situation. The bartender also needs to be fined if we are doing this with tobacco and marijuana because it helps the owner to know that essentially this bartender has been breaking the rules. I know from working as a bouncer as a kid, that we don’t always see who served the drink, and they don’t get held responsible and that same bartender still works there so we want to make sure if we are going to fine the agent, that maybe when it comes to alcohol, we can work in that direction after this so it mirrors in the same direction.”

Through the duration of the meeting, it was debated that it is difficult to make alcohol, tobacco and marijuana fines linear, as each establishment operates differently.

Springfield Councilor Tracye Whitfield responded to Councilor Gomez’s remarks with this concern. “That’s tough. I don’t know if you think it should be the bouncer, or whoever is checking ID’s at the door, but once you get inside the bar and all those different people are coming to the bar and they’re just trying to serve drinks, no one has checked ID’s. I think it’s important to fine the agent in these instances because it’s a smaller population and we know who is working at the counter and who is selling it.”

There are differences between alcohol, marijuana and tobacco establishments and operations that could make this difficult. For example, tobacco sales require an ID at the counter and not at the door, while consumers need to be buzzed in to a marijuana dispensary. It may also be easier to determine which agent sold marijuana or cigarettes than which bartender served a drink.

Councilor Hurst ended this portion of the meeting, sharing that there would be a discussion between Councilor Harris, Springfield Attorney Tasheena Davis and himself regarding the topic of determining fines and that the subject would be presented to the floor at a later date.

City Councilor Jesse Lederman was present at the meeting to discuss the early working of the Neighborhood Stabilization Fund. The initiative, a result of community and public input, addresses the question of how revenue from marijuana dispensaries will be spent for the city. Councilor Lederman shared, “A lot of us spent time on traveling throughout the city talking with different neighborhood groups, different community groups, on what their interest was with regards to generally everything that has to do with the establishment of this industry. One of the things that we continually heard was about how the revenue will be spent. That’s not uncommon, we heard that around MGM and are continuing to have those conversations.”

Drafts of the Neighborhood Stabilization Fund were introduced at the meeting that proposed two funds to be established. Each fund would collect 25% of the 3% tax that the city council is applying to marijuana sales. These funds would be dedicated either to neighborhoods within one mile of a dispensary or neighborhoods that fall within a historically impacted census as defined by the Cannabis Control Commission. Local areas included in that census are the North End, South End, Mason Square, Six Corners, lower Forest Park, Indian Orchard and lower Liberty Heights.

Mayor Domenic Sarno would have the authority over how the funds are allocated if finalized. For the funds to be transferred out, a vote of the city council would be required.

Lederman shared that the funds would help meet the needs of the community. “We felt we wanted to allow for it to meet the needs of the community that might go unmet in the city budget as they come up. It’s an opportunity to show our neighborhoods that we are continuing to push resources into them and do that pretty clearly. This is about sending a message to these neighborhoods that we are putting these funds aside and specifically to improve them.

The documents presented at the meeting have not yet been introduced for a floor vote.

A calendar of upcoming meetings can be found at www.springfield-ma.gov/cos/.

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