PALMER – Green Gold Group, a cannabis company in Massachusetts, has plans to expand their business into Palmer with a proposed medical and adult-use retail establishment at 1140 Thorndike St.

To inform residents on Green Gold and how they will utilize the space, a community outreach meeting took place at the Palmer Public Library on Sept. 29.

James McMahon, attorney for the Green Gold Group, shared a slideshow presentation with attendees that encompassed all the details. He explained that the company was founded in 2015, strictly for medical use. “When the state passed its recreational law in 2016, everyone who was a pre-existing medical was converted over to recreational. That’s how we got into the recreational or adult-use side of things,” said McMahon. He noted that the company is family owned and operated.

Currently, Green Gold has a 153,000-square-foot facility in North Brookfield that houses the grow, processing, packaging, labs, kitchens, distributions and more. “[It’s everything] but retail,” he said.
Green Gold’s medical and adult-use retail occurs in Charlton. “That’s been seeing great numbers but there’s always room for some more growth so now we’re over in Palmer,” he shared. “We’ve had our eye on Palmer for a while. We’ve been looking for just the right fit for a property and I think we found that right here.”

McMahon went on to explain that the type of license they’re applying for at 1140 Thorndike St. is a medical and recreational retail license only. “[There’s] no social consumption, no cultivation, just pure retail. We would be the only co-located medical and recreational license in Palmer,” he said. For patients to receive their medical cannabis currently, the closest locations are in Chicopee or the Green Gold store in Charlton.

“We’d be proud to help those who need access to their medicine in their hometown. We offer top quality organically grown adult-use cannabis to people over age 21 and to our medical patients with valid Massachusetts medical cards,” explained McMahon.

He shared that Green Gold would source top performing strains from across the commonwealth, along with self-grown strains. McMahon said that they recently had the “Cultivators Cup,” which is the statewide rankings for cannabis and every category that Green Gold entered, they placed in the top three. This includes receiving first place for their edibles, which they are happy to be bringing out.

With the retail license, McMahon expects this to create about 20 to 25 jobs, for which Palmer residents will be given the priority of hiring. All employees will receive eight hours of training and a background check before being hired. No one under the age of 21 can be employed.

Currently, the Thorndike location is an optician’s office. McMahon said they are planning to “keep the footprint exactly the same” as it’s well suited for what they are looking for. He noted that the only visual difference will be some “spruced up landscaping,” a new coat of paint and some new signs out front.

“There’s ample onsite parking and traffic flow,” shared McMahon. Under the parking code, they are required to have 11 spaces and one handicapped spot, but they are projecting to have 17 spaces and two handicapped spots.

He noted that they will take adequate security measures with full day and night camera coverage of the entire facility. The security system is shared with the Palmer Police Department so they can log in at any time.

“All cannabis is stored in a secure vault,” said McMahon. “Just like a bank, you only take out the amount you need for the transactions – everything else stays in the vault.”

McMahon said they will not dispose of cannabis on site, but instead will return it to the North Brookfield facility to be properly disposed of.

He went on to discuss diversion for minors. “We’ve been operating for seven years, and we’ve never had an incident of diversion,” he said. McMahon noted that this is easy to prevent as people get their identification checked three times, by three different people on the property. While adult-use is for anyone over 21, medical patients’ ages differ, as they receive the certification from their doctor.

Discussing nuisance prevention, as they are a retail store like Cumberland Farms and others, McMahon said they don’t plan to generate much fuss. This includes no odor generation, noise and so on.

He noted that they have already executed a host community agreement with the town of Palmer. “We offered a maximum community impact fee, it’s a three percent gross revenue share of all the sales that are done on site. Palmer also collects a three percent sales tax, so really, they’re getting six percent of all the sales – not our profits but our gross revenues.”

He explained that the community impact fee is a way to mitigate any costs associated with Green Gold’s operations.

Moving forward, Green Gold must go before the Planning Board for a site plan and special permit.
When asked about a timeline, McMahon said they would like to move in as soon as possible. He added that they are hopeful to get the application into the Planning Board about a week after the community outreach meeting took place. He said they have already sent the application into the state because they allow you to apply early. “We should have our provisional license hopefully from the state in either October or November. All that means is that we can start building out as soon as the town allows us,” shared McMahon.

He said they would like to beat the winter and get as much done as possible beforehand, however a plus side to the space is that it’s a renovation of the existing building – not new construction.
“Everyone in Palmer has been fantastic,” said McMahon. He recognized the police, Town Hall and Economic Development for their help thus far. “We look forward to working with the town to ensure we remain the model of how a world class facility should operate,” he concluded.

Palmer allows up to three retail facilities in town. Currently they only have one, making Green Gold the second.