{"id":3935,"date":"2022-01-20T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-20T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/CBMihgFodHRwczovL3d3dy50aGVkYXkuY29tL2xvY2FsLW5ld3MvMjAyMjAxMjAvbm9ydGgtc3RvbmluZ3Rvbi1zdG9uaW5ndG9uLWJvcm91Z2gtc2Vla2luZy1zaXgtbW9udGgtbW9yYXRvcml1bXMtb24tbWFyaWp1YW5hLWFwcGxpY2F0aW9uc9IBAA"},"modified":"2022-01-20T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-01-20T08:00:00","slug":"north-stonington-stonington-borough-seeking-six-month-moratoriums-on-marijuana-applications-theday-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/?p=3935","title":{"rendered":"North Stonington, Stonington, borough seeking six-month moratoriums on marijuana applications &#8211; theday.com"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/north-stonington-stonington-borough-seeking-six-month-moratoriums-on-marijuana-applications-theday-com.png\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p><!-- CATEGORY TEST: NWS01 12:32 PM 3\/14\/2019 --> <\/p>\n<p>The towns of&nbsp;Stonington and North Stonington and the Borough of Stonington will soon be holding&nbsp;public hearings&nbsp;on a proposal&nbsp;to implement&nbsp;a six-month moratorium on&nbsp;zoning applications&nbsp;from people who want to open marijuana&nbsp;shops and cannabis-growing or production facilities.<\/p>\n<p>The&nbsp;moratoriums are designed to&nbsp;give&nbsp;their planning and zoning commissions time to develop regulations&nbsp;to oversee the&nbsp;new types of businesses.&nbsp;During a moratorium, a municipality will not accept or consider an&nbsp;application for a cannabis-related business.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The&nbsp;three municipalities&nbsp;are the closest&nbsp;in southeastern Connecticut to the state of&nbsp;Rhode Island, where&nbsp;recreational marijuana is not sold. Because&nbsp;of the anticipated demand from marijuana users in Rhode Island and&nbsp;Connecticut, there is likely to be interest in opening&nbsp;a retail&nbsp;shop in the three locations. Under state law, each municipality&nbsp;can&nbsp;have&nbsp;one retailer and one facility that grows marijuana or&nbsp;produces cannabis&nbsp;products.<\/p>\n<p>According to the state law that legalized the recreational use of marijuana and took effect July 1, municipalities had the discretion to allow or prohibit cannabis businesses within their borders, as well as regulate signs, locations&nbsp;and operating hours of such businesses. In October, Stonington residents voted 2,106 to 1,816 to allow cannabis businesses in town. If municipalities&nbsp;do not take&nbsp;action to ban the businesses, they are allowed.&nbsp;Towns also can implement a 3% tax on marijuana sales, which&nbsp;has proven to be lucrative for Massachusetts communities that host&nbsp;cannabis shops.<\/p>\n<p>In Stonington Borough, Planning and&nbsp;Zoning Commission&nbsp;Chairman Don Maranell&nbsp;said Thursday the commission will hold a hearing at a date to be determined in&nbsp;March on the proposal to implement a moratorium.&nbsp;He stressed the&nbsp;borough is not banning anything&nbsp;but that&nbsp;a&nbsp;moratorum will give it an opportunity to develop regulations&nbsp;that specify in what commercial zones&nbsp;such businesses can be located&nbsp;so they are consistent with&nbsp;state requirements and regulations. He added the goal would be to have&nbsp;the borough&#8217;s regulations&nbsp;consistent with the ones that will be implemented by the town&nbsp;but only if they are in the best interest of the borough.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re trying to make&nbsp;sure there is a smooth transition into&nbsp;the legal&nbsp;trade of marijuana,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the&nbsp;North Stonington Planning and Zoning Commission has scheduled a public&nbsp;hearing&nbsp;on a proposal&nbsp;to implement a&nbsp;moratorium&nbsp;at 7 p.m. Feb. 3&nbsp;in the former middle\/high school media center at 298 Norwich-Westerly Road. The moratorium, if adopted,&nbsp;would remain&nbsp;in effect&nbsp;for six months or as&nbsp;long as it takes the commission to&nbsp;adopt&nbsp;cannabis&nbsp;zoning regulations.<\/p>\n<p>The Town of Stonington has already announced it will hold a March 1 hearing <a title=\"moratorium\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theday.com\/local-news\/20220118\/stonington-pzc-adopts-temporary-policy-for-marijuana-applications\" rel=\"noopener\">on its moratorium<\/a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"mailto:j.wojtas@theday.com\">j.wojtas@theday.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p> <!-- CORRECTION follows --> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The towns of&nbsp;Stonington and North Stonington and the Borough of Stonington will soon be holding&nbsp;public hearings&nbsp;on a proposal&nbsp;to implement&nbsp;a six-month moratorium on&nbsp;zoning applications&nbsp;from people who want to open marijuana&nbsp;shops and cannabis-growing or production facilities. The&nbsp;moratoriums are designed to&nbsp;give&nbsp;their planning and zoning commissions time to develop regulations&nbsp;to oversee the&nbsp;new types of businesses.&nbsp;During a moratorium, a municipality will not accept or consider an&nbsp;application for a cannabis-related business.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The&nbsp;three municipalities&nbsp;are the closest&nbsp;in southeastern Connecticut to the state of&nbsp;Rhode Island, where&nbsp;recreational marijuana is not sold. Because&nbsp;of the anticipated demand from marijuana users in Rhode Island and&nbsp;Connecticut, there is likely to be interest in opening&nbsp;a&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3936,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/north-stonington-stonington-borough-seeking-six-month-moratoriums-on-marijuana-applications-theday-com.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}