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City councilor slams idea to eliminate buffer zones between cannabis establishments

Councilor Ed Flynn said that getting rid of the buffer zones could pose a variety of risks and negatively impact residents.

Inside Ayr Wellness, a dispensary in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood. Jonathan Wiggs/Boston Globe

May 16, 2024

3 minutes to read

Boston officials are proposing a zoning amendment that would remove a requirement that a half-mile buffer zone exist between cannabis establishments. It is drawing opposition from at least one Boston City Council member.

“Removing the half mile buffer zone would have a significant impact on every neighborhood in the city of Boston,” Councilor Ed Flynn said in a statement Wednesday.

The proposed amendment dates back to May 2021, when then-City Councilor Lydia Edwards introduced potential changes to how cannabis establishments are approved in Boston. Members of the Boston Planning & Development Agency, the city’s Office of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion, and the Boston Cannabis Board have been meeting with stakeholders and tweaking the proposed amendment in the years since. It was the subject of a public meeting last Thursday, the first public meeting on the topic since November 2022.

The need for the changes was outlined during the meeting. Currently, new cannabis establishments must be a half-mile or more from existing cannabis establishments and at least 500 feet from any schools. Business owners who are unable to meet these requirements can seek a variance from the city to potentially skirt the buffer zone requirements, according to a presentation made by Will Cohen of the BPDA.

Given the number of cannabis establishments in the city today, most applicants are seeking variances, Cohen said.

There are currently 30 active cannabis retail licenses in Boston, with 32 active establishments. According to state law, municipalities that allow cannabis establishments cannot limit the number of cannabis retailers to any fewer than 20% of the number of licenses issued for alcohol retailers. Put simply, this means that one-fifth of the number of licenses for alcohol sales in a city or town needs to equal the minimum number of cannabis establishments that the municipality allows.

So, based on the number of current package store licenses in Boston, the city must allow 50 or more cannabis retailers, according to the presentation.

“Right now, to get from 30 to 50, there just is not space in the existing buffers to make that happen,” Cohen said.

Flynn, who represents parts of Downtown, Chinatown, South Boston, Bay Village, the South End, and Back Bay, said he has heard from constituents consistently about the need to enforce the half-mile buffer zone. Their concerns regard “quality of life issues and people smoking openly in public,” he said.

“Given the difficulty with enforcement on smoking cannabis in public, I believe the removal of the buffer zone would only further exacerbate these existing quality of life concerns for residents,” Flynn said.

He specifically mentioned the Downtown area, where three cannabis establishments are already close together. The highly dense area is full of residents, students, day care centers that do not fall under the laws about dispensaries not being close to schools, and nonprofits that serve vulnerable populations. Removing the buffer would eliminate “any remaining community safeguard,” Flynn said.

The proposed amendment could lead to a saturated market and harm existing business owners, Flynn said. In addition, there would be a greater risk of both new and existing operators not engaging with civic organizations or disregarding existing community agreements.

During the meeting, Cohen stressed that the Zoning Board of Appeal will still be required to individually approve any new cannabis establishments in the city, and that the buffer zones around schools would stay the same.

A public comment period is open until the end of May. Comments can be submitted directly via email to [email protected].

The BPDA will post those comments and any responses it has to them by June 6. Cohen anticipates that a petition will be submitted to the BPDA by June 13. The proposed amendment could then go before the Boston Zoning Commission by July 10, after which it could be officially adopted into the zoning code.