all right we're going to resume well now reconvene a special town meeting in the town of belmont which was recess earlier this evening given the expectation that the debate on the marijuana article quoting the amendments is likely to take some time i have made the decision that we will not have the time because it go too late to return to items easy and half under article ten of the annual town meeting so those will lead off the discussion on monday followed by the three to five we still should be able to complete our action for the annual town meeting on monday so we'll begin the marijuana discussion and we have worked hard many of us to try to do this and as orderly and clear away as possible for an issue that is not clear at all  what we'll do first is the citizens petitioners will read the motion i will then turn to george hall who will want to lay out the context for the us and the issue that we're debating and the amendments were debating have to that i will then turn to the board of selectmen for their vote and then back to the petitioners mista lowery who will make his presentation and then introducing miss thurston who will make her amendments and her presentation so when we get to explain the process at that point but we'll read the motion and then begin by hearing from town council george so mr lowery tom lowry tell me member precinct two article one moved that the town vote to amend the general by laws pertaining to section sixty public health safety welfare and environmental protection and set forth under article one of the warrant for this to me to majority vote sixteen the voters of the commonwealth made it possible for marijuana to be purchased by adults for non medical use for adult use sometimes referred to as recreational use i don't find that word in the statute the that is the new law chapter ninety four g of the general laws allows various types of marijuana businesses that's the term that's used in the statute there are different types of marijuana establishment and it divides them into four types there are cultivat businesses that grow marijuana for sale to product manufacturers and retailers there are product manufacturers there are retailers and the independent testing laboratories the cannabis control commission which was created by the statute which is the state agency also has the power by regulation to create other types u s every municipality by default was a dry town opted in this is the reverse the default is that sales of marijuana marijuana businesses are allowed unless towns opt out there are the licensing authority is not local there is a statewide licensing us authority that's the cannabis control commission so in the absence of any local regulations a an applicant who wishes to operate a marijuana business applies to the state agency that would include retail shops that would be located in any particular city and town section three of chapter ninety four allows towns to adopt two different types of regulations the first type are time place and manner restrictions which essentially deal with you know whether and where and under what circumstances and subject to what you know operational controls a business can operate but it is not a time place and manner regulations are not prohibitory and in fact that section says th the the other section the second paragraph says towns may prohibit one or more types of marijuana stablish mints they may limit the number of marijuana stablish mints to not more than twenty percent of the  retail package store licenses issued in that town where they may limit marijuana stablish mintz to the same activity that is currently being conducted by an existing medical facility and that last one isn't relevant in belmont because there is no existing medical facility elements of the the two options would be to prohibit one or more types or to impose a limit equal to twenty percent of the number of package  licenses there are six package store licenses outstanding in belmont so unless that number changes twenty percent rounded up would be the the main motion that's been presented under this article is a complete opt out and now chapter ninety four g was substantially amended by the legislature last summer twenty seventeen and one of the things that the legislature was asked to clarify was whether opt out byelaws had to be adopted by the voters at the ballot or by i mean it's a legislative body the way byelaws or otherwise adopted and the legislature came up with i think a rather strange compromise where towns that had voted no were a majority of the voters who voted no on question four did not have to ask the voters again and could just go to the legislative body and pass a byelaw opting out in those towns where the majority of the voters had voted yes towns may not pass opt out by laws or a cap on the number of marijuana stablish mints without another vote at the ballot so once before you in this mean motion is is a complete opt out it would would prohibit all four types of marijuana establishment and in order to become effective if the town meeting were to pass that it would have to then also be put placed on the ballot and approved by the voters retailers so it would opt out it would prohibit cultivators independent testing laboratories product manufacturers but not retailers one version of the amendment would  contain that same exception and then sunset the prohibition in three years at the end of calendar twenty twenty one and then the third amendment would replace the the opt out was simply the twenty percent of the cap on the number of retailers at the twenty percent of the number of pakistan at least so those are the options the town meeting is being presented with through the main motion and the in the three amendments that have been all of those no matter what emerges from the town meeting if any of those is approved would require approval by the voters at by ballot at out of town ask in advance and the amendments as well yes we've also approved those that we helped draft the adam dash chair of the board of selectmen town meeting member at large let me see if i can explain this the the board of selectmen unanimously voted to for favorable action on these special town meeting article one opt out if amendments one and seven are included or and that was unanimous or if amendment seven was included if should amendment one not be or an ornament to not be adopted however we voted unanimously unfavorable action on the article one for the special town meeting opt out should none of the amendments  one or seven and seven or seven be attached i could explain that now or i could wait for a question when someone inevitably asks why but it's a very as you can imagine with all the amendments that have come on and come off and changed it's been a very complex series of votes but we feel that that's the way that we all unanimously want it to go we'll come back to that discussion and you can elaborate  and former member of the board of health care bill one when i walk you through the rationale in the path for article one before us by citizens petition from voters in every precinct they voted both for and against question four in november two thousand and sixteen next one please when i make a few things very clear before i start this discussion is not about legalization and decriminalization marijuana because that's already the law this discussion is not about restricting belmont's citizens rights because individuals can now grow access share and use marijuana this discussion was not about the pros and cons of a recreational marijuana stablish mint but the amendments will now take us there specifically for the issue of having one here in belmont this discussion is about whether belmont voters have the right to express their preference about adult use marijuana establishment specifically commercial retail establishments here in belmont we need to have this discussion about allowing belmont voters the up to to vote on this local issue regarding marijuana establishment because the question was not voted on in november two thousand and sixteen and we are sure that we will have the opportunity based on the law that we passed next slide as background here is the voter's guide each of us received in the mail just like the league of women voters guide we receive each april next line here's the text a ballot question for that was passed statewide in two thousand and sixteen the primary focus was statewide legalization and decriminalization of marijuana where there are two separate issues first statewide legalization decriminalization of recreational marijuana in second local control of non medical adult use marijuana commercial retail establishments specifically cities and towns were authorized to hold a local auction decide whether or not her met the sale of marijuana in their town next slide next on thank you now i will see the arguments in favor and against question for next line under arguments in favor it states local cities and towns can limit or ban marijuana businesses this argument in favor could have been a key consideration for voting yes consequently this possibility enabled voters who would have otherwise voted no to separate their opinion on statewide legalization decriminalization from their opinion about the presence of marijuana  one thing i've learned from being a town meeting member is the importance of language and ballot measures and laws if you took the time to read all the entire law in one thousand seven hundred forty three words you seem very clearly this opportunism sure to us this principle applies to the ballot question so i urge you to consider carefully the actual language presented all voters in two thousand and sixteen next slide assuming the voters in our town voted yes on question four were voting in favor of recreational marijuana stablish in some belmont is not consistent with the language of the ballot or the law looks like our town is unique in that we have a representative town meeting as unique as town meeting members we're expected to represent our constituents precinct by precinct we're meant to be a representative democracy we owe voters in our town the option discuss and vote on this issue that's specific to our town it's incorrect to assume that voters who voted yes and question for revoting in favor of local maryland establishment will we permit recreational marijuana in belmont it's actually not up to us in town meeting it's up to the voters our purpose tonight is the decide whether we should allow this discussion to continue and proce town white election a yes vote on article one allows a discussion to continue in our citizens to design a no vote ends the discussion assumes that our citizens already voiced their opinion on this specific local issue nex accordingly i urge you to let the people decide by voting yes on article one and no on the amendments which change the intent of the original article in motion if we vote yes there will be a town white election and people will decide if the questions that should filed others three through six but as withdrawn the so she will read we are considering her amendments in the order of two one and seven she'll read to and then we will and she'll make a presentation and then the petitioners will respond the official amendment that will be on the table will be amendment two but we will i will allow and encourage a discussion of all three amendments together because they really are of khai and and so we'll have  the opportunity discussion together and then we'll vote when we finish that discussion on amendment two then turn to amendment one in may of completed our discussion are not vote on one and will turn to amendment seven and we may have completed our discussion or not and will vote on amendments seven amendments one and two is myth first and will explain momentarily  retailers comma both and b inserting the following the provisions of the foregoing sentence shall be no and void and of no force and effect on or after december thirty first two thousand and twenty one so that the section reads as follows section prohibited within the town of belmont provided however that a registered marijuana dispensary shall not be deemed to be a marijuana establishment the provisions of the foregoing sentence shall be no void and of no force and effect on and after december thirty first two thousand disclosure i do not have any financial interest in these amendments however it was suggested to me that i should disclose that i am a small business owner in belmont i do not own the property it is not my main source of income in addition i have been working with the anti prohibition movement in massachusetts since two thousand and eight when we pass decriminalization of marijuana and therefore given a fifteen year background in corporate retail and owning a distillery which has heavy regulations involved it is a safe to assume that at some point in the future if this passes i may or may not be called on as an advocate or a consultant to work with the establishment that being set on november eighth two thousand and sixteen massachusetts massachusetts voters were asked if they were in favor of regulation and taxation of commercial sale of marijuana one point of no in some of the slides we keep using the word disc decriminalisation that happened already that uses decriminalized marijuana in two thousand and eight we've done that question for was about regulation and taxation of commercial sale of marijuana products massachusetts voted fifty three point six percent in favor of this question belmont voters voted fifty two point five percent in favor with an eighty two point four percent voter turnout rate here in town as a point our local recent april third ten election in april was sixteen point four percent you cannot regulate and tax for commercial use without a retail component i do not believe that this fact was lost on voters therefore when the article was proposed by citizens petition to completely opt out of all marijuana establishments i began asking for opinions i was also collecting signatures for town meeting so i got talk to a lot of people most frequently i heard we already voted on this what's happening i also heard some concern about non retail establishment as mr hall mentioned the cultivators the production and the independent testing facilities it seems to me that taking a drastic reactionary approach to an industry that is so brand new that it has yet to even open one single door in the state was overkill i believe we simply deserve more options one item that's come up frequently is the discussion of cannabis cafs the state has not ruled or defined what a cannabis cafe or social consumption is in drafting these amendments i wanted to give us hopefully i will i will defer to town council for that inability to preemptively opt out of a potential cannabis cafe we are a dry town for bars we don't have bars so i thought i would put that in there again i don't know if legally it covers that but i wanted to at least make a star seven i started with seven total amendments ease of blissfully been narrowed down to just three and after many many meetings and discussions of various town departments and seeing which ones make the most sense i decided to start with amendment two because this has a sunset clause again this is a brand new industry for the state with a constantly changing set of regulations once or moratorium the other night who knows where we will be in three years we some monday night help painless it was to adopt to buy a lot after a sunset clause so i decided to make th potentially easier for all of us and twenty twenty one walking back our alcohol ban was no walk in the park and contributed to controversy and confusion last year so i suggest we take a lesson from his one  i want to leave i do want to be brief and leave a lot of time for questions but one thing i did want to point out you know i'm standing up here as a proponent of taxation and regulation i'm also standing up here as a parent i'm standing up here a taxpayer i'm testing up here is a homeowner and resident one of the best ways besides education to cut down the use of marijuana in youth is to strangle its source you suck the oxygen out of the room who is going to check i d s at the highly regulated regulated retail establishment whose business and license is at risk by not doing so or is going to be john the dealer down the street who's concerned about the strength of the products the integrity of the ingredients the growing how it's grown if it's got pesticides and who is going to check that who signs a host community agreement and has potential sponsorship opportunities within the town one of the acquaintances that i have owns a medical facility and brockton and they sponsor all kinds of things in town they come to them with special projects who provides jobs who provide their own security around town and surveillance who pays the town for the opportunity to do business here as it is a retail establishment it's not your street dealer if we take that commerce out of the hands of street dealers and put new tax dollars in our town coffers as we voted to do in november with the commercial sale of marijuana being regulated  since we're going to be discussing before i turn to the rebuttal since we're going to be discussing amendments seven as well because you take sick literally no more than sixty seconds but explain why you chose what amendment establish its no more it sets a cap of two but that would mr all look at today and that would go to the voters as well so anything we do tonight will go to the voters now will have a for the first word in there was legalization as well as regulation taxation so there definitely was a decision about legalization it was a separate decision and whether or not we have local retail marijuana here in belmont you go to the next sli please if you pay close attention and read the language in the in the amendments you notice that all of them allow retail marijuana establishment here in town these amendments make the decision for the voter and also take away your opt to use a tell me to vote on article on the citizens in belmont deserve the right to vote yes or no on this issue that's very specific to our local town these amendments do not amend article one to basically do away with the heart of article one the purpose of article one is to take the question of the recreational retail marijuana south bushman to the voters next like please a minute seven also does this in fact if you read the language carefully it deletes the entire article one if any single amendment passes it will not only take away belmont voters chance to voice their opinion recreational marijuana but also take away your chance to voice your opinion and whether other should decide everything that is proposed in the first second and seventh amendments will happen anyway if the opt out process does not pass retail be proposed limits will be by zoning and planning board rather than circumvent the democratic process on the specific local issue we should first address it here in town meeting send it to the voters and then just see what they decide voters need time to carefully consider debate new evidence that is emerging from other states we heard citations about teen marijuana use there's data coming from colorado showing that towns that have retail marijuana establishment have higher use among the youth than towns that do not after colorado legalization marijuana the black market skyrocket as well as a legal market we have to take time as a town to study this newly available data to be able to make this decision a very thoughtful manner this is critical decision for belmont don't rush it by voting yes on these amendments or urge you to vote no on all the amendments and vote yes on article one to let the voter sign thank you so you can be seated in the front row as well now to repeat we are debating article this is me amendment two was on the table but we are debating the three amendments because there are so interrelated and the key question here any of the amendments adopted or not what the final result of the motion has adopted as amended or not will be to go to the voters so if i misspoke obviously if you vote no on the main motion it wouldn't go to the voters but if you approve an amendment and then approve the article one as amended or prove it as not amended whatever form it takes it will go to the voters so thank you but i want to be clear that we are it has to go to the voters and we're deciding the question the question no the normal way that we handle all the issues in town meeting is we have a main motion and where those motions are amended we care we take the amendments in order so we always do and if all the amendments are defeated and we go back to the main motion on amend if the amendments are adopted two and seven are one and seven seven alone are adopted with then go back to the main motion as amended and then we debate the main motion as amended and then that question is do we adopt that and send it to the voters or do we not so the process we're going through is what we do every town meeting with every motion it has and then we deal with the amendments first and then we go to the main motion microphone that tanny town meaning member precinct one i think this is very important because it's so confusing i'd like to know your side if we accept let's say we accept the amendment that says we want to ban everything except for retail yes now we go to the main article and you say we read that as amended yet so we're again voting that we want to ban all marijuana except retail but that's not so we never got to amendment one which is that we can ban everything and have a citizen vote you know the normal process is if it cemented we then consider the motion as amended which is what we always  let's the right word not a total bans all established so the amendments are saying we want to ban three of the four establishment  we want to allow retail that's what we're going to sensually debating tonight it's really comes down just said that and then depending on the vote on the amendments we then come back to the main motion and decide do we want to approve that and send it to the voters or not we could amend it and say ok we passed these amendments and decide not to send it to the voters or to send it to the voters so it's a different question in the full motion the amendments speak to the content of what it is we're going to send to the voters and then the motion itself is do we want precinct two i have a question a comment and then a second question my first question is my understanding is for us to have any local control that is that variance from the state or from from the state statute there needs to be a special election is that true mr hall the if if the if you want to adopt a by a law that either prohibits any type of marijuana establishment or limits the number of retail establishments that has to be approved at a town elect operational requirements do not have to go to the ballot those were those are so called time place and manner bylaws they do not need to be approved so my comment is and i am not speaking for the work committee we took a position on this and then decided not to take a position on it because we realize we had an incorrect understanding of the law and how it worked so i voted last week on favorably on on this article i did not want to have a special election for a host of reasons i won't go into i did that though under the assumption that we could still have control beyond just time place and manner i did not realize that for any probation whatsoever of any type that there would have to be election given that there has to be an election regardless if we want any limitations then i do feel compelled to speak on behalf of residents of precinct t and i have been contacted by numerous people saying they want to vote and they want a vote on on the menaces or on the articles that originally put forth without amendment so i feel compelled to state that  do you have the option to put a range of options on the ballot if there is an election the reason that i'm asking that is what i'd like to see is the ability to have a complete opt out but also the ability not to have a complete opt out that i think if we have to have a special election is there the possibility the voters can consider a range of options or not mr h l it may be possible for the board to put alternative on the ballot but if but that those would still have to be approved by town meeting ok you might my question simply that the board does have the praga to at least recommend a range of options that the town can consider from allowing everything to fall out but it can be adopted subsequently it does so so yes it would be possible t mr hall to follow up on that question they would not be able to do that would they unilaterally if the town meeting had order or put another way would they then they'd have to come they could but then they'd have to come back to town meeting and we'd have to approve it i mean the way the statute is written actually anticipated that the election would come first and then it would go to town meeting what the attorney general's office has been  doing and recommending is that it go to town meeting first because town meeting is where changes to the language get made through the amendment process and because the statute requires that the voters approve exactly the language that is in the ultimate by law and because you can't amend it at the ballot many towns are going to town meeting first trying to get agreement among the town meeting voters as to what the byelaw should say and then presenting that to the voters for an up or down vote that is that's the process that's evolved rather than trying to give a menu of options to two town voters which might produce inconsistent results so i think that's the concern about trying to trying to put multiple options on a on a ballot is how do you determine which of those if more than one of them one for article one but there are two things that sort of bother me one is that they talk about we want to have a vote but as you saw before we had a vote that was in on specific on this but the turnout was eighty percent and my concern is that we hold a special election the turnout will be seen like thirty percent so over half the town over half the town will not have participated and i know myself i know my parents they say they don't pay attention as closely to this is i do they would know what t that's that's i think one of reasons why i'm sort of skeptical a little concerned i would also say that one of my fears is that if you're in a community that's not in belmont that's on newton that's on watertown you'll say ok you voted for the legalization in the whole process i appreciate that but if you in the wealthier towns are not going to set this out where it's going to go it's going to go into other towns but also port towns is also a social social values issue if we voted for this we have to take all the i feel like totality i voted against this amendment one article one i mean i would vote for the amendment some type of balance i want to balance i don't think that either or it is better i think a vote for the amendments and not for article one alone close bigger town meeting precinct five the gentleman right before mentioned the social equity i'm not going to let liberal guilt influence me because unlike placing a garbage dump in a poor town these towns have the opportunity of saying no and i believe that lawrence the poorest community in massachusetts has indeed exerted that right that's actually not my main message i was part of was downtown and i think that gives me an insight that most people here won't have because i spoke to maybe one hundred fifty people the some of the things that we learnt or that i learned to hear was one does a huge support for palliative use of marijuana so that's great that's not so shocking i also found that the people who said that they had voted yes at the state election they did so whole reasons that weren't local they were if there's a broad sort of libertarian support that's why i voted yes to you know let other people do what they want there's concerns about mass incarceration and so on but local issue didn't even come up nobody said i really look forward to having a local shop so i can you know go get mom announced for christmas that never was there was never raised and i think and i think that's a very important  point here because when people say we all ready voted we voted on something different and when you talk to especially parents with children they're worried and it's very i think we should really realize that there's not a lot support of having a local outlet therefore i think the best thing to do is to put this out to the voters and let them decide and i think we will see a resounding no and we shouldn't get in the way of  allen david alpert precinct six and again as a disclaimer i also have a seat in the mass association of health boards which is the governing body of health boards throughout the commonwealth so i do have preconceived knowledge of what's going on with other towns in the discussions accordingly imus rising to speak to answer the previous question or as far as regulations in the town back in march the board of health passed regulations for retail sales in the town these are in effect they are superseding in a couple of ways but it does in fact give town control and it's important that you realize that which is why rose when i heard the question asked it means that they need to get a town license now it's not a ten thousand dollar license unfortunately but they do need to pay a fee for a license in town in order to pay the cost of being inspected and they will be inspected twice a year is a minimum just like restaurants are what are we inspecting for were inspecting first of all for the food products because of those you don't know it's not just going to be leaf but there's going to be brownies lollipops gummy bears except for the state was very strict and how these had to be packaged they cannot be packaged looking like a kit kat bar or something attracted to youth and in fact most of the packaging has to obscure what's inside but like any other food product it expires so we need to make sure it's being handled properly and that it doesn't expire we also need to be make sure that regulation as far as age admission into the shops is controlled i am very proud to say that the board of health passed the first regulation in state to raise the purchase age to twenty five it doesn't mean you can't use it at twenty one but you cannot go into the shop in belmont if you are under the age of twenty five and that means that if somebody wants to go buy it and they've got their kid in the stroller that stroller cannot go into that shop children will not be able to go into these shops and actually no one under twenty five will be able to these shops are like high end jewelry stores that exist in colorado oregon washington and will exist here it is a two door process with a containment chamber in between you need to flash an id to a camera just to get through the first door and then there's further requirements to get into side the shop the shops are required to have security at all times so there's going to be a very secure facility now hours location that's your planning board that does not come under the board of health and the board of health during our voting took no position on these because we have no horse in the race what we would did have a horse in the race was to make sure that the citizens were getting protection of what was going to be coming here which means we can inspect them we can vet them and we can control who actually can purchase and this cannot be changed so thank you mr moderator mister mr roberts paul roberts on meeting member of precinct eight i want to i think kind of ask a question of the selectmen that synthesizes some of the comments up here and i will note that in and sixteen actually if you go and look at the votes at this town took in two thousand and sixteen it's very illustrated of in november of that year which is a presidential election year we approve the legalization of marijuana i think something like eighty two percent of the registered voters in town turned out in september of that year we had a special election specifically for the minuteman high school issue which would be very similar to what some are proposing which is a special a one issue special election around legalization or retail  sales eighteen percent of voters turn out five times more people turned out for the november vote than for the special election and i think if you believe in democracy  you want this issue to be decided by the broad swath of belmont voters and over one hundred percent but i think it's a decision that should be made by more than fifteen or eighteen percent and that's not an unusual turnout i'm actually very sympathetic to the argument that when we voted to legalize a statewide the voters were not necessarily saying that they wanted to permit retail sales in belmont i'm actually very sympathetic to that argument what i would ask of the selectmen is if this is to go to the voters would you commit to putting it on a november ballot in november of this year so that the broad swath of the belmont voting population we once again have a chance  election like the minuteman i suppose it could be theoretically a separate local ballot on the november regular election where you would get a state ballot and the regular about that has its own issues but i think theoretically you could do one of those things as far as what we would commit to putting on the ballot i guess it depends on what all you find people come up with and how this turns out and what the margins are and then we will have to go back and deliberate i mean at some point i'm happy to explain how we got to where we are i don't know if this is the point you want that mr moderators sure please mr because this was a we've had we've debated this at the board of selectmen i would say four times probably and again maybe five times right before this evening because that is the ground has kept shifting we certainly respect the good intentions of everybody on both sides here what we have ended up favoring through the disc what i said earlier is a we unanimously favored a vote on what's a limited opt out which seemed to be a reasonable compromise of the situation question for we felt did say the towns could opt out it didn't say towns had to opt out i would note and one of the things that we talked about a lot was we don't have any walls right i mean this is not a feudal community with you know archers in boiling oil and such at the borders although with the with the cut through traffic i have certainly fantasized the th ing is that towns around us are going to have these facilities they're going to be in cambridge they could be in watertown right on belmont street you know by magnolia or liquors or something you wouldn't even know it was not in dominant for instance and any negative ext should there be any from having such facilities is going to be in belmont no more than liquor was kept out of belmont when it was a dry town the marijuana is not going to be kept out of belmont if we opt out and the five think some of the things we talked about was that we should at least be able to get the tax revenue and be able to regulate it i mean one thing that we've been keeping for most our mind obviously is extending that two thousand and fifteen override as long as possible and if it's going to be here and if we can get the taxation it's not just that tax that we voted the other night there's also the host agreement that the facilities have to negotiate with the town and i know where my office is in somerville i was involved with you know some of this negotiation involving a recreational facility was a lot of news going on and the city negotiated very hard and got a very favorable they had three recreation the recreation three medicinal marijuana facilities and some of on they got very very favorable goodies from those host agreements in addition to the taxation that we would be getting we could do the same we would also note that we discussed that that the legislature at the state seemed to draw a distinction between how a town voted on question for so the the state seemed to be linking how you voted on question four with the intent of the voters because question for if your town voted in favor of it like we did you had to go back to the voters in order to doubt however if your town voted against it just the board of selectmen could get rid of it so it seemed to me that there was something that there was some sort of link the state was making as to how you voted on question for dealt with how or whether you would opt out and  so we took that seriously i can say that we also discussed how discouraging it kind of was that there seemed to be arguments as to who was more democratic than whom and i think i understand the validity of both of those arguments that there are people who say that it should go back on the ballot because that's the most democratic thing and i also respect the people who say why we voted why should people who didn't like the outcome a question for get a second bite at the apple and revote it i am going to stay out of that for the moment probably beyond the scope but to just answer the question as to why we came up with what we came up with to be very specific on these amendments so we voted unfavorably on two amendment two because of the sunset the sunset is sort of not the kind of sunset like you saw on the zoning where it goes away it was actually the opposite what the sunset in two says is that you're banning everything but recreational until that sunset and then it all comes back a we didn't think that if you're going to we're go make this decision tonight we're going to make the decision we're going to be done with that we don't want to do it again i think it's been very divisive and secondly we felt that having everything come back into town meeting didn't meet in time or something got messed up with the date that we would up with someone slipping an application in and we didn't want to do that we were very much all i think you know all against having cultivation testing or production facilities in town what we were really looking at was the it was we were in favor of  t one which was the same as amendment two but no opt out so it was based no sunset so basically it was that everything would be banned except for the retail and again this would go to the voters we're not against putting it on the ballot we're saying put the opt out on the ballot but it would be limited opt out to everything except for the retail and then amendment seven we were in favor of which we are actually glad in is thurston put on there because by putting that in there and putting it on the ballot we can then limit the number of those facilities which we were very much in favor of so when i said earlier we were in favor we had favorable action on this article one opt out but only if amendment one which got rid of everything but the retail and amendment seven which limited the numb of facilities we're on it if those were not on it then we were not in favor of the unadorned just plain blanket opt out entirely respecting of course everybody's show up at the ballot box and voted for you know for this vote yes on this question i do appreciate you know the points that been made by my former colleague in the proponents of article of article one that we didn't really speak to  have it here in belmont i just logically think about that and say did i go into bell vote yes but as long as it's not in my backyard i just don't think that was the case number one number two the other point that i felt strongly about is that  chair dash mentioned they're going to be someplace over in cambridge or in watertown to waltham we will have an ability here in belmont to regulate it i mean dr albert just mentioned exactly how we would do that so in order for us to regulate it you can be in the yard over the line you know over the the cambridge line if you will there will be establishment there on concord ave you i feel as though we have some ability to control the regulation of these establish mean i'm not really certain it's not yet the fine and so from my point of view a retail establishment no more than two in town makes sense practically speaking there won't be more than two frankly because we don't have the commercial you know space to be able to do that and i agree with what adam said about the we talked about the the sunset provision i'm concerned about that because i've said this publicly i'm not certain what that does for us once it sunsets then everything else is open i may not be as uncomfortable with cultivation product manufacturing testing but i very much was uncomfortable with home delivery so i'm not certain you can regulate that i clearly understand that can which can deliver you know that's going to take place right and i wasn't comfortable with social clubs if you will so i think this is a balanced approach and that was my thinking behind it ok thank you and yes on my left thank you mr moderator doug john how meeting member precinct seven i was a person who voted for a question for back in two thousand and sixteen but mostly because i wanted to affirm that marijuana would be decriminalized i voted of belief thinking that we would visit question of how these establishment sweat take form in belmont and i think it's something that perhaps i'm a very small minority of the people who voted to from an employee who thought that way maybe everybody thought yeah i'm voting for everything that's right there i did not perhaps i was the only dummy in the room  so i i strongly favor having us pass the question i was it is written without the amendments and give it to the voters my wife and i actually voted against question for on the possibly naive assumption that by doing so we would absolutely ensure forever that our son's right and joe would never go near or hear about marijuana very active campaigns were raised on both sides of that question point that retail marijuana could have negative impacts on the community in which it was located was made evident to us i think one of the ads actually showed a mother looking at her young son walking out of a pot sho p also make clear to us was the point that marijuana sales would be subject to a six point two five percent state sales tax and that every resident of the commonwealth would benefit from these revenues whether their town had a pot shop or not i'm sure that like us our  fellow voters process these points before they went to the polls in the end seven hundred more belmont citizens voted in favor of question for them voted against it and the highest turnout election were likely to happen till tw i don't think that belmont voters when for question four with a view that marijuana would be sold elsewhere but not here i don't think or at least i don't want to think that  retail marijuana sales while extra analyzing the costs i think more highly of our fellow belmonte and then that i don't think we're a vote no and take the da kind of a crowd at least i hope we're not and that's why i'll be voting for the amendments and against the main be a cruise town meeting member precinct five so i like john actually i voted yes on the amendments and again for me it was a question of i think the regulation marijuana is not a federal issue and i was very happy to see the state sorry the commonwealth of massachusetts being able to decide but similar to what mr lowry said i did expect the town to be able to to have a vote and to opt out if they so choose the funny thing is is that i actually think i town did have a vote i probably still would vote yes but for me i think the larger issue here is you know we set the bar really high for a citizens petition you know you need twenty five signatures to be to be on the town meeting ballot fifty to be a selectman but to bring an issue to town meeting it requires two hundred signatures and you know the folks behind this went out and they collected two hundred thirty one signatures and you know we make this promise is if you've got an issue that you care about get your signatures come to town meeting and you'll have your issue and conversation discussed in town meeting and the problem i have with these amendments is that it undermines that we're not talking about the opt out what we're talking about is what is euphemistically being called the limited opt out but it's not an opt out and so for me you know we've had a lot of conversation around democratic process democratic process and i think that's a fair point eighty percent turnout i do like mr roberts suggestion around a double ballot in november but for me the bigger issue is that the citizens petition they brought this here and i think we owe it to the process and the promise that we make to our citizens that if you have something and you bring it here we'll talk about it here without adding in all of these amendments that effectively change the conversation completely and remove that original intent off the table so whether you're you know yes or no around all these things around marijuana here or not i think to be fair and to follow the process i think it's important that we vote no on the amendment and allow the article that was brought to us by the citizens to to to to stand and that's what we vote on thank you thi four sorry is there anyone in this room that doesn't know that we already have marijuana sales in belmont right sorry mark but we also have home delivery so what you need to know that this man can we stand marijuana is being sold anyway and you don't know what you're getting and you don't know who your vendor is this is a way to control the sales we had a very hard time pass we didn't get a pass six years ago or seven years ago that it took years to get another one on the ballot we fought very hard we finally got one to pass this is an opportunity to get tax revenue colorado in two thousand and sixteen got two hundred million dollars in additional tax revenue by allowing these stores to open and the first forty million each year went to building excellent schools eighteen million went to the department of public health and environment to fund programs  don't find six lines and said marijuana is in belmont it's currently being sold by drug dealers they sell heroin cocaine which they dilute and fail for as much money can get there a business business owner is in it to make as much profit as possible and the town that stays opted in is going to decrease the market as far as the drug dealers are concerned any town that opt out in any way is going to be much more attractive to drug dealers no it will not matter that towns on our border have marijuana establishment drug dealers will come right of course and continue to salazar you certainly are doing now if we want to protect our children and if we wanted to our citizens in general who may be having problems with the epidemic what we need to do is defeat the amendments defeat article one and settle this and that the hand even though we've gotten a number of e mails they're hardly representative of everybody two hundred signatures is great it brings the issue to town meeting that certainly cannot be a proxy for suggesting that there is a representative groundswell of any sort in the town that we must recognize through a vote by doing what is proposed in the original article i do support the the amendments that the that the selectmen have said would be appropriate which will then allow for for some vote but the total ban the total  opt out pre amps us from from going forward and seeing what we're going to get from the planning board regulations we already have excellent regulations that have been book put forth by the board of health there are a lot of extraneous arguments being thrown in with the the the article one arguments which have been passed off as being mostly process arguments but in the e mails i get the additional  know we want to keep this from our kids our kids know about marijuana and selling it under regulation to adults certainly won't make it more accessible to teenagers and finally returning to the process the notion that's being put forth in the an amended articles on is that we vote for that that gives people a chance to vote but what we have to do what we being asked to do in order to get the issue on the ballot is to vote that it's already been explained that perhaps the original intention was to have the voters vote first at the town meeting i don't feel comfortable being asked to vote for something that may or may not reflect my conscience and my decision on this question simply to give rise to a referendum i think that's just completely backwards and that it basically takes the town meeting function that is supposed to exist out of the out of the process and there's a wrong headed approach  people vote yes on amendments what are we one in seven i urge support for amendments one and seven you my name is priya linked and meeting member increasing six the first point that i would like to make is you know i just feel like it's a little unfair to keep bringing up the time out of the november twenty sixth election because that was at least in my life the most consequential election that i would probably have crawled over glass to vote on regardless of what was on the ballot so and then the second point is that you know as mr dash mentioned you know why should we have a second bite at the apple well you know ballot question for that so many of us voted on was fortunately or unfortunately worded in such a way so as to lead us to believe that we do indeed have a second bite at the apple and you know so all of that being said you know i do urge town meeting to vote no on the amendments and yes on article one and i have pretty much only from constituents who would like that as an outcome and then my last point is more a personal point i have a lot of pediatricians in my family and they and the american academy of pediatrics are increasingly concerned about the increasing number of t h c poisonings that they're seeing in the emergency room from children who are accessing the type of marijuana that is now available which you know whether it is you know smoked or whether it is eaten you know in the form of edibles this is not your father's marijuana and it's not the marijuana that you know was part of my culture in india which you know i mean it's a big part of it so i know you know the pros and cons it so that was just a quick personal point that i wanted to me thank you here in freiburg precinct one and i would like to make the point that i've been lobbied extensively not only  by people but even at the m f a this past saturday when people came up you're going to be a town meeting please vote yes so i think there is a lot of emotion associated with this issue trying to do in town meeting member precinct five i wanted to respond to an earlier comment that mr becker made who i have a lot of respect for but he made a comment that i didn't want to let slide where he said there's a lot of parents that are concerned about this so i just rise to speak on behalf of parents who are really not terribly concerned about this in fact thank you a lot of a lot of the parents who i have talked to who have young kids the same age as mine when i ask are you what is your feeling about a marijuana establishment now and they have really no concerns about it speaking for myself i would much prefer to have a conversation with my children about responsible drug use when it's out in the open and they can see that it's a real thing that adults some adults will choose to do and just like we talk about alcohol use and just like when we go to conley's for lunch which is an establishment that couldn't exist in belmont but we go to watertown i go to commies all the time and half the people in this room probably think it's in belmont but it's really not in  watertown so as a parent i'm not concerned about it in fact i think it's better to have it out in the open in my capacity working for the public schools here for twelve years i've probably interacted with more students and parents than i would say most of the people in the room parents in this town are really good parents and really strong parents i guarantee you that a marijuana establishment in town is not going to let the fabric of our community crumble i don't think it's anything that a lot of people are afraid that crazy compromise that got us through the process i can add nothing to mr hall's lucid explanation of it i voted for legalization it was an advocate for legalization because i believe that the drug dealing industry is one that sucks in young men and destroys them and you can arrest as many as you want but it's going to keep sucking in more and so we're doing a lot of harm there are prohibition policy for marijuana that's what we were doing at the constant reservation of course is the public health consequences of perhaps having somewhat more availability of the drug although as and then pointed out it's all over the place anyway but today that public health considerations really moving in a different direction because yes there are concerns about the you know increased potency and so forth but we have the chemicals that are out there on the market some people are mixing this stuff into marijuana there's a there's a whole sort of revolution and drug chemistry that's happening out there and i think it's terribly important that if people are purchasing there are want to they purchase it in license facilities where they know what they're getting  we're not going to achieve either the goal of strangling the illegal market or the gall of preventing deaths through you know poisons marijuana if we don't have a decent network of marijuana establishment all across the state we're just going to fail so i as a as a as a voter and as a legislator that's favored i'm very concerned about the trend in communities across the state to say well i voted for it but i didn't mean in my own backyard that's a really dangerous trend that would defeat the policy the i think the point that the so i hope that we will have you know keep belmont open to marijuana stablish ment's i hope that we will vote for the amendments and then against the article at the end of the day legislature just kept adding tweaking more tuning up the packaging regulations labeling regulations purity regulations so this is a very heavily regulated industry and adama we've got a quality board of health that is adding to that strengthening that so i think the risks are extremely low for the community and as i say for the for the amendments against the article possible facilities is right down the street here from the high school near the loading dock in the distillery so i just need to raise that so that we're all aware of what we're discussing here and  i want the people of belmont to clearly decide whether to opt out or not and my children you know most children from precinct eight walk this path right by the loading dock to turn into the high school that's how we get to there's no cut through under the tracks so everyone walks around that would be going to the high school from precinct eight and i will say this is my third term i have not received any emails in favor of the amendments but i all the emails i've received are in support of article one so if you want the voters of belmont to decide whether we can opt out of this you have to vote against the amendments and for article one for a straight up or down vote thank you mr that stage you want to why can i just went be located that's why they you passed the moratorium extension to december thirty first the other night the reason why mr clarke got up and said we need the moratorium is they need the time to find the time place and manner restrictions because they much of my name is craig or ican lee i'm a forty year resident of belmont had the fortune of i think a few many years ago speaking to this podium when it was filled with every member of the high school in his most difficult speech i k but let me return to the subject at hand in that is what was voted on was not what came out of the legislature so what was voted on was what came out of the legislature in all we're saying is let's not be half pregnant here either make a decision to opt out or make a decision not to opt out back in november we lack the data from colorado that now can be considered carefully by the voters not in a ballot it's filled with questions and candidates and so on and so forth but in a local election if people feel local elections should be invalidated because of turnout i have a difficulty with that what we have learned from colorado is those communities that allow now this is relevant that allow the commercial sale there is an increase in youth use those that don't know when cruise people speak to regulation this product is not regulated that is the tetra hydrocarbon night carbon ojt content is only regulated by the legislature and i belmont was a special town it wasn't and i apologize to people who may live in cambridge watertown a wall for him it has its community norms and social values we have a strong family or all our children graduated from the schools and have done extremely well but what drives use of a legal substance is what is social norms established are by the act community and i do think belmont is special and if we say we do not feel comfortable in saying it's normal to have it sold in our community then we're sending a strong message to youth that it's risky that it's not ok with adults and you shouldn't use it in the dad a clearly shows that when colorado data from university please wind the marijuana sold today has six to ten times a concentration of such high to carbon oil than what was available in the sixty's since colorado legalized it's gone up seventy percent and there is no authority either at the board level state level legislature to a step out bush in reduce the potency of the drug and when you train a young mind to use  were locations that were established that's a totally different thing from this this is the adult use or what would people would call recreational marijuana for which there are no we don't have the rules done yet i know i see chair clark over there nodding yes i must be saying the right  thing but that the planning boy that's why the playing board asked for the moratorium till the end of the years they could develop that but we don't have it for what we're talking about tonight ok thank you so going to have medical marijuana establishment separate from retail there are totally separate federally we allow the rep we allow record medical marijuana stablish moments today in belmont we don't have one but if someone wanted to open one they could the record what we're talking about now is just the recreational  if the town to have article one if we vote away the amendments and we vote for article one it goes before the town and the town yes we a pprove or not we don't opt out if there isn't no opt out without any amendments on it are you still able to limit the establishment in the way that you would like to not without amendment seven that's the purpose of amendment seven is so that we can limit it you couldn't change it after the vote that's a procedural question i'm not sure i can answer yes george halas shaking his head no so again i assume  i'd recognize i would ask please can we just have mr mercier i have recognized mr magara if i made a mistake in the sequence i apologize i recognize m i am not going to entertain interruptions about the order i recognize people i've always tried to do it fairly i have not done it perfectly i'm sure i would ask not to be interrupted please mr mercer and i would ask the audience yes different people have gone out of scope i'm trying to moderate a discussion and have several times told them that gone beyond the scope that i ask you not to start yelling and interrupting can we have a reasonably civil discussion about this one i'm also a member of the barlow review committee i think now would be a really good time to review the bidding if article one as it no caps on any of the establishments and all the establishment are allowed in belmont retail testing cultivation and the other one yes correct that's the status quo today so if the if whatever goes to the voters fails then the status quo today will continue to be the status quo which is that there are no limits other than those imposed through the licensing process at the state level but but any of those types of business could apply for a license to operate that particular type of marijuana business in doma and in our status quo situation meaning article one failed at the voters are regulatory and local regulatory is board of health and there's zoning and planning there are the two groups that have more or less the best shot jurisdiction george hall town council yes but those would both be time place and manner restrictions and so they can talk about siting they can talk about design they can talk about various operational requirements as the board of health regulations do but they could not limit the number of marijuana establishment and if they tried to do that and the town meeting would have to approve it and it would have still have to go to the voters correct correct ok so let's try to fall this so if you instead go to the voters with that amended article one that has the cap in article have to mess with that ever again right if that went to the voters and it failed then you're back at status quo back at status quo you're no worse off so the game really is do you think a total opt out would pass in belmont if you would think it will fail we are much better off with article with the amendment putting the cap on it do i have that right well i won't i won't tell you i won't weigh in on whether we're better off or not if we wanted i but if you want if your goal is to have some restriction rather than yes i mean the idea is to try to generate a proposal that will pass but i should say this these are independent requirements yes the town meeting has its own function its own deliberative functions so the town meeting can make its own choice whatever the town meeting approves however has must also be approved by the voters  jack weiss precinct one i try to stay informed and engaged on these issues as we have learned tonight this is very i'm not looking at this as an opportunity to get that proverbial second bite at the apple i think we are struggling with various levels of uncertainty uncertainty number one which mr  lowry mentioned is how do we know how many of that fifty three or fifty four percent yes vote really was for legalization of use as well as location versus not and i think the people who raise the eighty two versus sixteen percent voter turnout are raising equal uncertain question about uncertainty how do we know if we have a local election and we get a twenty percent  turnout that that twenty percent is reflective of what the eighty percent felt personally i think it's more likely that the uncertainty is greater that a lower turnout will result in people voting who had more extreme positions and not necessarily representative of the eighty percent who did vote the other uncertainty is we're now talking about needing to go back to the voters for any level of regulation that honestly is a new one to me in the past day or two  think it's hard for us to know but my intuition is that the belmont voters and the belmont voters who voted in that fifty five percent were probably not saying complete laissez faire any number any type of use all fair game and so i think a reasonable compromise is where the selectmen came out vote yes on seven to limit the number to two retail establishments and then as much as i would have preferred not to go back to the electorate for a second election because of my fear that the turnout would be representative i think that's the better compromise position and probably better reflective of where the citizens of our community come out thank you i just wanted to say that  introduce yourself i'm dan stevens precinct four i just wanted to say that this is a representative democratic body ice and seriously doubt that people who are not in this room are as passionate or as well informed after this discussion as we are and the talk about letting voters decide and ratified decisions strikes me as a little bit disingenuous it's very very likely that in a low turnout election this  referendum would would decided against allowing legal marijuana and that it would be extreme positions and i strongly encourages here not to abdicate our responsibility to a town election it does have to happen but i really believe that we here in this room care the most about it and are at this point better informed than most of the people who trusted us to represent them so regulated sale of adult use marijuana growing up in queens it was much easier for me to obtain pot in high school than it was to get alcohol because one was regulator and the other wasn't i would just like to address a few other issues regarding health concerns i'm an assistant professor of medicine at the boston university school of medicine i board certifications in internal medicine pulmonary medicine in critical care medicine after twenty years of running ice use in bellevue colorado and  boston medical center i have treated countless people for the ravages of alcohol and opiate addiction i have never once treated anyone for the proper complications of marijuana i think the safest thing we can do is deal with this upfront control but tax it make some money off of it and take as much of the profit motive out of it for alyson sales that's why i will be voting for the amendments and against the article thank you is move the question it's not debatable and requires a all right you want to display the so more than two thirds one ninety nine favor fifty want to pose for the record more than two thirds we will now vote let's put back the motion amendment t all right this is the amendment we're voting on it's the one with the sunset and this is the amendment when the next amendment is the one same one without the sunset ok so we're voting on this amendment  know it's only requires a majority record there's some town meeting member precinct one moved the article one be amended by inserting into the proposed section sixty one zero seven after the words all types of marijuana establishments the words except for marijuana retailers t l chapter ninety four g section one shall be prohibited within the town of belmont provided however that a registered marijuana dispensary shall not be deemed to be a marijuana establishment and we've had the votes already just you want to repeat just your vote and after the board of selectmen town meeting member a large just because it's been such a long time the board of selectmen recommends favorable  and mr lowery of the petitioners had requested some time ago to respond to the issue of the turnout and he had to slide cities in advance so he will miss to allow i recognize thank you for your time larry precinct to turn remember we go to the appendix slide so i think it's slide fifteen thank you just wanted to put some numbers up on the data can speak for themselves talk about the number of people who voted in the difference between the people voted yes and no four article one basically if you question number three hundred fifty nine people had voted against this article of the outcome of the change so then the really the question is as they look at the ballot versus for local establishments it's a very small percentage two point three percent of the people who vote in the election if you go to the next slide there's been a lot of discussion and sort of the i think in correct assumption that  sion for something so hotly contested here town meeting would be a very low turnout certainly ballot question for had eighty percent that's shown here on the far right of the operating override fourth point five million dollars operating override had a fifty percent  turnout and so we've been assigning the turnout likelihood being in the ten percent range that's that's totally false we don't know what the turnout is going to be i have a pretty good feeling that if we sent this to the voters on something that we feel so strongly about would have at least the turnout of the four point five million dollar override if not higher a lot of people here have talked about sort of their motivation for their stance i'll tell you mine i live four doors down from marijuana stablish much telegraph avenue in berkeley california i love berkeley i love telegraph avenue it broke my heart to see what happened to the heritage telegraph  when i lived there as a student at cal and i became very convincing can have a strong conviction the importance of people being able to speak freely it's the birthplace of the free speech movement and i think it's important for us to send the option of an opt out a in this town who are concerned about the retail sales of marijuana here and probably the other types of establishment it's great i'm happy to see that democracy and grassroots activism is  alive and well here in belmont that's good but what we shouldn't do is drive a conclusion from the fact that we're hearing a lot from those folks and come parroted really little from people who are telling us town meeting members to maintain retail sales here in town it's impossible to distinguish between one scenario in which there is one group that's highly active and the people who might support retail sales are sitting by quietly or at the other scenario in which in fact there is a majority of people in town who would oppose retail sales and othe while it is true that people have gotten e mails and everybody should listen to their constituents i would just urge people not to draw the conclusion that the people who are sending emails are necessarily representative of a majority of our neighbors precinct eight i too have received an inordinate number of e mails from people i know some from people i don't but they made the effort to reach out to me either on the street through my email some on my phone or my office to plead for a chance to render their opinion at the ballot box it's  quality of life issue here in belmont and i think it is up to the voters not necessarily this group to decide on the quality of life of the community they want to live in i give the voters a high degree of confidence we have a lot of very smart people in town my mother is eighty seven she may not be here she may not be running around but she certainly is informed and she certainly is opinionated and can form her own opinion on whatever issue of the day is at the table i have that same degree of confidence in our if you give the people the chance to vote on marijuana establishments up down i'm not taking a position yeah a day i'm looking for an opportunity to give your neighbors your mothers your fathers your sisters your brothers your selection at the table today earlier that it was a lot easier for me to be a selectman then because we did not even have liquor establishment we didn't even have alcohol we were dry town and we really didn't have much problem procuring alcohol just go watertown cambridge or anything around we were able to get at that points been made but we had a vote to bring liquor to town people decided what they wanted for the town of belmont they decided they wanted to have it in restaurants in certain ways it's evolved over town but again the people had the opportunity to vote so i posed the fighting shut what are we afraid of what are we afraid of in giving the people your friends your neighbors people like maybe seven year old mom an opportunity to cast a vote whether it goes up whether it goes down at least it's the community whether they go to the ballot box that also is a choice but they want the opportunity you know the late john yoo jr say oh when he played for the patriots he got up when he went to a super bowl he says we have a chance to win the super bowl we have a chance we have an opportunity unfortunately they lost that super bowl but the point is that's that the we want to be i'd like to give the voters a chance no matter what this is let them go to the box or not that's their choice put it on in november if you want but given the opportunity up down in different and then that's that's the community way and that tennie precinct one i move that we change the order and vote on article one before the amendments so we vote on the kind of out of order the complete opt out and then if the apt out fails we can talk about partial opt outs no that's out of order we'll continue the discussion yes or william messenger precinct for a minute to terminate debate terminate debate this time voting to terminate debate on amendment one to terminate debate yet we're not voting on the motion on the amendment voting on terminating debate when they're  oh yes number one to terminate debate two to continue discussion motion disapproved to twenty seven to twenty so the debate is terminated on amendment one we can now put amendment one back just requires a majority so we are voting now on amendment one in front of you let me know when the polls are open and if you could read that in the moment there's been town meeting member precinct one aren't you glad i didn't do all seven moved to article one be further amended by adding a new paragraph b of section sixty  those be consistent with m g l chapter ninety four g s section three eight two the number of marijuana retailers in belmont shall not exceed a number that is equal to twenty percent of the number of licenses issued within the town of belmont for the retail sale of alcoholic beverages not to be drunk on the premises where sold under m t l chapter one thirty eight section fifteen as implemented in belmont pursuant to chapter sixteen of the acts of two thousand and fourteen as amended by right this is a motion to terminate debate requires two thirds vote yes if you want to terminate debate no if not we now we now mold to the vote on amendment seven in front of you this is the final amendment and then after this we then go back to the amendment seven in mens adopted two hundred nine in favor forty opposed we now go back to the original motion and it has as amended and the two amendments that you approve one to include retail establishments with no sunset and the second amendment seven which effectively limits the number of establishment to no more than two and those are the two amendments that you have approved accompanying the original motion so now we debate whether we would as amended whether we support that and send it to the voters ms freedman did you thank you bonnie friedman precinct three i had lots and lots of notes and most people have already covered most so i'm going to try to just roll through there with me for a second a lot of them had to do with the numbers of how many people voted which has been spoken to a lot but one thing that hasn't been brought up is that the special election the town election would require if we did it on the same day as the state election in november two tables of coming in and two tables of leaving it is far more complicated so ellen cushman has said that she would prefer not to do it that day if we don't do it that day a special election can only be from two to eight pm that seven hours less than a regular election in the marijuana regulations so that would make it much more difficult for people to get to the poll so you add all the difference in the percentage of people who came out to vote from the original marijuana question which was the second highest turnout on any question in the last ten years going back to all the elections i looked at online on the town clerk site i'd also like to add that there are all different reasons we would want to have a shop in town a dispensary in town and one thing that i felt from i did a lot of research going to other states i went into dispensaries in colorado oregon and washington and they cater to different groups of people and by keeping our eye already having our regulations that no one und twenty five can go when clearly we're not looking for the kind of people shopping our dispensary who want are in their twenty's wanting to get high the research i found was that adults often code in marijuana shops like they go to alcohol shops looking for something something different something maybe they use marijuana before and the other group are seniors who don't want to deal with the logistics of getting a medical prescription and they want other alternatives just like they look for over the counter drugs and those are the kinds of audience we would want to come to belmont just like our craft your shop is very very successful i would suggest that we are perfect for a craft marijuana shop i'm sure there will be some belmont would be a good site for something like that and we could get our three percent tax the towns that have opted out around all no towns there are many adults in those towns who will be buying marijuana we'd rather them come to belmont than to go to our neighbors so thank you sexily make it on the ballot however complexities can be dealt with and there we don't cut the cost very much however i do want to correct you a special election is entirely up to the board of selectmen in terms of hours it can be from seven in the morning till eight at night would have to be a minimum from two to two eight and we have had them  before go ahead and you have a follow up question when i was in your office and you weren't there make said that is not true based on the rules in the book hall town council yes photo on the motion as amended would prohibit the cannabis control commission from issuing a license to any marijuana establishment engaged in  manufacture or independent testing but would allow the cannabis control commission to allow not more than two licenses for retail establishments in the  no vote would continue the status quo which would be that all of those licenses would be available to an applicant to the cannabis control commission without restriction  speaker in that i also have a high regard for our electorate and they have already spoken and they have a they said that they want to allow me i want this town so we are essentially saying let's bring it back then let's take another dip so i can think of probably a million other ways to spend that seventeen thousand dollars if i went to every department head i'm sure they could give me some very good things to spend it on rather then an election for an issue that we've already solved thank  yeah we'll try to get it up motion to terminate debate one moment also to want to get the article yes mr hall is going to clarify one point it's just i just want to make george whole town council it just want to make clear that my last explanation the by law that would be approved would impose the limit that i limit i just described but it would also have to be approved at the ballot by the voters in order to go into effect yeah that's i mean how the words what we've approved tonight is not take a fact and tell it's approved by the voters so if we approve it of course in other words he was clarifying that while we've approved tonight is not have any impact it's nolen void unless it's approved by the voters correct mr  straw let me again george hall town council what i said was a yes vote would accomplish certain things and a no vote would maintain the status quo a yes vote would be in would prohibit licensing of all of mitt marijuana stablish means other than retailers and cap the number of retailers to two but only if that by law is also approved by the voters at a town election n there would that there would not likely be called a town a town election called i just want to make clear these are two independent requirements of the adoption of a by law the town meeting vote in the ballot question one does not actually require the other or prohibit prevent the other practically speaking if the town meeting votes this down there will be no town election but i'll leave it at that to terminate debate if we can get that right this is the motion to terminate debate requires two thirds motion as approved by more than two thirds to thirty in favor fifteen opposed now will get up on the screen a motion as amended no that's not the motion ok i said all right all right so what we're voting on the actual language is the bottom of this of amendment one plus amendment seven that's a specific that we're voting on in terms of the implications before we vote does anybody have any questions of clarification for town council that's correct ok that's that's what i want to hear that's correct  this is not a bad i am taking a license to make sure that people have questions of clarification that there's an opportunity to ask this is an incredibly confusing for people and moving target and so i want to make sure we have this opportunity mr magara robert precinct one member of the bylaws committee hound council well described the effect of a yes vote he uses to talk about the results of the no vote it would be i think helpful to everybody in the room to understand where we end up when we say the word status quo yes i think that would be helpful as well mr ha george town council the status quo is that there are no local restrictions that the cannabis control commission can act favorably on a license application for any type of marijuana establishment in the  that and that control is where commissions that's subject to the discretion and control the cannabis control commission it's not to say that they would license an unlimited number but there would be no george town council yes and then it would have to come back to town meeting you know it would either have to go in the same order that they do it would be subject to a town meeting but first and then of the ballot question or the other way around but  there's no there's no finality as far as what the future town meetings could or could do on this question and it would take a combination once again of prevent them from filing a license application to the cannabis control commission and starting to proceed through that license process even while the i mean that's a process that might take several months anyway so it wouldn't it wouldn't prevent the cannabis control commission from issuing a license as a practical matter anybody who applies for a license going to need to identify a site have an arrangement for a site so i think that it's going to practically postpone it until there is only regulations in place but but legally it is not an impediment to a license application and the m time ceases on december thirty one of this year correct that's right well so in the idea of a moratorium it would be that at a fall town meeting the town may approve a zoning by law that may say where's these facilities can be located under what circumstances and the effective date of that by a lot would be the date of the vote so some point that either the more either or it will be replaced by is owned by a law approved before the end of the year periods of time in order to study or develop regulations in response to some kind of you know an intense pain of circumstances or sort of local emergency circumstances such as you know water supply number precinct for let me just be clear about this in terms of the process here the moratorium is in place in the moratorium is in place and no adult use marijuana stablish my understanding will open in belmont before the end of the moratorium between depending what happens here between now and even if it even if you if you vote for this amendment or if you vote against  amendment the planning this week will be working on putting zoning in place which we anticipate to be coming to town meeting in the fall so there will be zoning that will regulate things so the status quo is not really the status quo the status quo is that the actuality is that there is a moratorium in place and we will be moving forward to put zoning in place that regulates adult use marijuana zoning but not but my one and seven all those in favor yes those opposed no motion as approved as amended one thirty five to one twel sir request for a roll call vote that's appropriate in our bylaws but it requires thirty five thirty five town meeting members to support a roll call and we're there's an electronic roll call vote it won't take long but any case in point is it takes thirty five town meeting members to support a r somebody have a question our bylaws have to have a final vote a town meeting member can request a roll call such has been requesting the next step is are there thirty five people town meeting members who support  call so we'll find out we're going to do an electronic vote if you support a roll call vote yes if you don't vote no yes for yes we will vote again electronically and then that right that roll call will be public so we need we're getting a he's pulling it up  electronically no electronically so you now will this is a vote on the main motion as men like you voted for two minutes ago and now this will be a roll call and will be public in the town once we get the total then we can also scroll through and show how people voted