Lisbon councilors deny 207 Edibles marijuana application

LISBON — Lorelei Hilliker’s marijuana application for her 207 Edibles business was denied Tuesday night by councilors, as recommended by town staff.

The vote was not unanimous and some councilors acknowledged that the decision made the town look like it was treating two similar businesses operating out of the same building unfairly.

After a lengthy discussion, Nicholas Craig, Mark Lunt, Chris Camire, Jeremy Barnard and JoJean Keller voted to deny the application while Councilor Norm Albert was the only affirmative vote.

Problems with the building at 5 Canal St. stem from missing building, plumbing and electrical permits, as well as the length between the exit and farthest point on the first and second floors being too long, creating a fire hazard.

207 Edibles is on the second floor and Lisbon Cannabis, owned by Jason Smith, is on the first floor. Smith and Hilliker own the building equally but it is financed through Councilor Fern Larochelle, who recused himself during discussions and the vote on Hilliker’s application.

Smith’s marijuana application was approved in May 2024 and reconsidered in October after a required public hearing was not held before approval. At the October meeting councilors voted not to rescind Smith’s license.

Shortly after, Hilliker applied for her yearly marijuana license for 207 Edibles and has hit roadblocks due to building issues identified by the code enforcement officer — some problems that the code enforcement officer had been aware for several years.

In previous years, Code Enforcement Officer Mark Stambach had not raised issue with 207 Edibles and Lisbon Cannabis’ license applications, even though he was aware of missing permits for work on the building.

In a Lisbon Cannabis license application document dated May 10, 2022, Stambach said he was only able to locate three electrical permit records for the building. He acknowledged he could not find any building, plumbing or sign permits for it in that nearly three-year-old letter.

However he states in the letter, “a walkthrough of the building showed some minor violations that were identified and corrections were to be made. I have no reason to believe that the building is significantly out of code in regards to the building or plumbing aspects.”

There was a temporary stay on enforcing the town’s sign ordinance at the time so the town could not take action on that missing permit anyway, he said.

Looking at licensing materials for 207 Edibles and Lisbon Cannabis going back to 2020, there is documentation by the previous code enforcement officer and Stambach that indicates yearly inspections were done, one example being the May 10, 2022, letter, but there are no copies of the inspections in those files held in the clerk’s office.

It is unclear if a code enforcement and fire department official was conducting inspections every year as outlined by the town’s marijuana ordinance.

At Tuesday’s meeting much of the blame for approving the marijuana licenses against town code was laid on the previous code enforcement officer and the town clerk, a position for which there has been some turnover in the past year.

Stambach said he spoke to the previous code enforcement officer who said those building permits did exist in the record at some point. It appears that documents were at times taken out of licensing records and not returned.

Albert said there needs to be better and more secure record keeping practices so documents do not end up missing.

Barnard said he is aware of other cases when building permits for businesses had been lost by town staff, for which the town needed to take responsibility.

“There’s a responsibility the town has that they did not follow through with, as far as I can tell, and I think as a result we should be smooth and gentle with our response to the town businesses who are trying to … get on the right side of good,” Barnard said.

Barnard and Albert were in favor of approving Hilliker’s license but Barnard ultimately voted against it because he was concerned about the fire safety issue identified by Stambach.

Albert said it was unfair to license Lisbon Cannabis’ business last May and then affirm it again last October when the building issues still likely existed, but not approve Hilliker’s license now. It “wreaks to high heaven,” he said, and though he knows it would be violating town ordinance he was still voting to approve Hilliker’s license.

The town’s attorney said that if a business is not in compliance with the entire marijuana ordinance then councilors cannot approve the license, per the ordinance.

Assuming Stambach conducted an inspection for Lisbon Cannabis last May, Albert said he does not understand why the license renewal was placed on the agenda last May to be approved if such problems existed.

Town Manager Glenn Michalowski said the town clerk at that time had Lisbon Cannabis’ license approval placed on the council’s agenda during one of the meetings last May and it was up to the clerk to ensure that all application materials were submitted — otherwise it should not have gone on the agenda.

“To that point, here we are, we sit in this space where a license was renewed and it shares the same half of that building … but we’re going to go ahead and say that’s OK,” Albert said. “And it went so far as to be challenged and then we said as a council last October we’re not going to revoke because we believe this meets the criteria. Now we’re saying that this same type of business meets the criteria by their own admission, except for the violation on the fire part and the measurement associated with that. Was that not in play then?”

Michalowski said revoking a license is different than issuing one.

But Albert said he still didn’t understand why the measurement issue was not caught when inspections were done for Lisbon Cannabis last May.

“If we’re going to be enforcers, we’re going to say ‘we are not going to approve that license tonight,’ then I say we need to revoke the other license for the other business on the other side for the exact same reason,” Albert said. “I don’t want to injure that business but I’m saying if we want to talk about what’s right is right we can’t just do it for one half of the business, we have to do it for the whole.”

Craig agreed and said he would entertain such a discussion at a future meeting. He acknowledged public accusations of favoritism but he was not on the council last October so he cannot speak to what happened previously, he can only speak to what happens going forward.

“I have a hard time with, well, this is how it was done before so this is how it should be done this time,” Craig said. “Just because something may have been approved inappropriately the last time, I don’t know that I can bring myself to go against what the ordinance says.”

Craig asked that a discussion about safety issues at Lisbon Cannabis be brought to the next meeting.

It is unclear if the council will consider revoking Lisbon Cannabis’ operating license at a future meeting. The license expires in May.