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WILTON — Residents voted Tuesday to approve a new Cannabis Ordinance that limits the maximum number of retail stores for medical and recreational use to five.
David Aliano of Wilton speaks Tuesday at a special town meeting to approve a new Cannabis Ordinance. He questioned the need to get a permit to operate a cannabis business from a home. Voters assembled at Academy Hill School approved the ordinance. Donna M. Perry/Sun Journal
The town has been under a moratorium on issuing new licenses for cannabis-related establishments for nearly a year so town officials could develop a new ordinance regulating and controlling the location, operation and number of recreational businesses and medical cannabis facilities.
The new ordinance restricts the number of retail stores for medical and recreational use to five. There are now four stores and one permit open for a fifth, Mike Wells, chairman of the Cannabis Ordinance Committee and vice chairperson of the Wilton Select Board, said.
Residents voiced concerns about having too many retail stores and other marijuana-related businesses and not wanting narcotics in the drug-free safe zones. There was also concern about requiring a home occupation permit for those operating businesses in their homes.
Resident David Aliano questioned the new occupancy permit requirement, saying he believed it would hurt the small farmer who provides cannabis to stores.
Wells said the state Office of Cannabis Policy, in a revised law, is requiring a home occupation permit for those who run marijuana businesses from their home, such as a caregiver. An application must be filed for a permit, he said.
Wells said previously that a lot of loopholes have been closed under the new law, which took effect Aug. 9.
The committee aligned the ordinance definitions with the new state law, he said.
The law makes public most information regarding registered caregivers, dispensaries, manufacturing facilities, or testing facilities operating in the medical cannabis program and creates specific exemptions for certain kinds of information. The new law exempts from disclosure the personal contact information of registered caregivers, or assistants, officers or directors of a registered caregiver facility.
Previously, some of the information on who had a medical caregiver license was not public.
In a show of hands, a majority of those voted to approve the new ordinance.
Thomas Skolfield of Weld was elected to moderate the special town meeting at Academy Hill School.
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