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Community Corner

Edgartown Board Pleads Ignorance on Marijuana Rules

Saying they hadn't had time to read the state's draft regulations issued Friday, members of the Edgartown Planning Board Tuesday rebuffed a request to shorten a proposed moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries. Town voters get their say n

Tuesday evening, a majority of the Edgartown Planning Board agreed with a prospective medical marijuana dispensary operator that a six-month moratorium on dispensaries would be preferable to the 12-month moratorium facing voters at next week's annual town meeting.

"It’s inevitable that some people will be gone by the time they have access to a safe, legal drug," Jordan Wallace told the board in a hearing continued from last month.

But Wallace needed four of five board members' votes to change the warrant, and he only received three.

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"We needed another vote," a disappointed Wallace said after the hearing at Town Hall, adding that he nonetheless was encouraged to have swayed a majority of the board.

Impatient and dismissive

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From the outset of Tuesday's hearing, continued from last month, planning board members and assistant Georgiana Greenough seemed impatient with Wallace's argument that with the state moving ahead on schedule with medical marijuana regulations, a year-long moratorium would unnecessarily delay patient access to legal medication.

Board members and Greenough repeatedly told Wallace that they had only received the state's draft regulations on medical marijuana dispensaries, issued at midday Friday, shortly before their 5:30 p.m. meeting began Tuesday.

"This was handed to me and the rest of the board just minutes ago, so we have not had a chance to digest any of it," board chair Robert M. Cavallo said.

When Wallace said he had read all of the regulations, Cavallo asked him "Did you work today?"

Laughter from board members muffled Wallace's response: "Sir, actually this is my work."

Greenough, the board assistant, was also dismissive of Wallace's arguments, telling him at one point "You’re saying the same thing over and over again."

He responded, "I take that comment as disrespectful, Georgiana," and told Patch afterward that as a staffer who is not on the planning board, "she has no right to challenge me on the floor like that."

The 12-month moratorium remains on the town meeting warrant for April 9. Wallace, an Oak Bluffs resident, said Cavallo has invited him to speak to town voters at the meeting.

To read an interview with Jordan Wallace, please see Medical Marijuana Hearing Resumes in Edgartown.

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