Connecticut gave the green light to recreational cannabis for adults 21 and older last year, but more than 40 percent of cities and towns are saying no — at least for now.
The state’s recreational cannabis law, which went into effect last July, allows municipalities to develop their own rules, including whether to prohibit marijuana establishments from opening within their borders.
As retail sales are expected to start later this year, at least 75 of Connecticut’s 169 municipalities have instituted bans or moratoriums, according to a Hearst Connecticut Media Group analysis. Many are smaller rural and suburban towns, but some cities have also announced they are not interested in these businesses opening in their communities.
Hearst Connecticut Media has gathered information on more than 120 municipalities by conducting interviews with local officials and reviewing news articles and municipal records.
An analysis found that at least 22 municipalities have established bans and 53 have imposed moratoriums.
Many local officials have cited the need for more time to review the state law, craft new regulations and solicit public feedback.
Industry advocates say prohibiting sales or cannabis businesses means towns will miss out on economic growth and tax revenues.
“It doesn’t change consumer habits other than the fact that consumers end up driving to another jurisdiction,” said Aaron Smith, executive director of the National Cannabis Industry Association.
In other states that have taken similar tactics, municipalities that initially banned the businesses eventually opened up to them, Smith added.
That’s similar to the line of thinking in towns such as East Hartford, where officials have created a detailed web page to answer questions about the zoning regulations for recreational cannabis businesses.
“I think the general sentiment of the community as a whole was that it was legalized by the state of Connecticut,” said Eileen Buckheit, East Hartford’s director of development. “We thought it was inevitable that it was going to be in the state of Connecticut, and we would rather participate in that and take advantage of the sales tax.”
Some Connecticut cities and towns moved quickly, enacting prohibitions — temporary or more permanent — soon after it became legal for people 21 and older to posses and consume marijuana in the state.
Newtown banned all cannabis establishments the same day the law went into effect, with officials there expressing concern about unintended consequences. Other municipalities that acted early were Danbury and Ridgefield, which both imposed one-year moratoriums on cannabis businesses, and Greenwich, which banned the sale of recreational cannabis, citing a “conflict between state and federal law,” which classifies marijuana as illegal.
“When the Planning and Zoning Commission reviewed the zoning regulations regarding the ban, the merits of recreational or medicinal marijuana were not considered on topic,” Katie DeLuca, Greenwich’s director of planning and zoning, said in an emailed statement. “The reason is that they found that there was a legal conflict between state and federal law in that state law permits such uses and federal law does not. In such instances, federal law takes precedent.”
The town of Cheshire passed a moratorium last month on recreational cannabis businesses, but exempted cultivators and micro-cultivators following a request from a local businessman who told the Planning and Zoning Commission that he planned to apply for a lottery license.
Fairfield County has a large concentration of towns with bans or moratoriums. Bridgeport and Stamford, the two largest cities in the county, do not have either. Norwalk, on the other hand, is likely to impose a nine-month moratorium. In addition to Greenwich, Darien, New Canaan, Westport and Weston all have bans.
But some of those without bans have instituted strict zoning regulations around where the businesses can be located. In Bridgeport, for example, the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission in December restricted them to industrial areas where strip clubs and adult stores are located.
Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a national group that opposes cannabis commercialization, favors strict zoning in towns that allow cannabis, said Kevin Sabet, the group’s founder and a cannabis critic.
“While we encourage towns to opt-out of legal sales and production in states that have legalized, SAM also advocates for strong zoning regulations in towns that decide to have retail stores,” Sabet wrote in an emailed statement.
Many towns along the border with Massachusetts, which legalized recreational marijuana in 2016 and opened retail stores in late 2018, have largely not issued any kind of prohibition or taken up the issue. Border towns Granby, Stafford and Woodstock all have moratoriums in place.
Other municipalities such as Andover, Middletown and Norwich are rolling out the welcoming mat.
Andover is “actively recruiting cannabis businesses in the town,” town administrator Eric Anderson said in an email.
Middletown’s Planning and Zoning Commission approved regulations last August to allow the cultivation and sale of marijuana in certain areas of the city.
The Norwich Community Development Corporation, the city’s economic development arm, has a page on its website dedicated to the industry, which says “the Cannabis industry, in all its forms, is welcome in the City of Norwich.”
A “driving factor” is that parts of Norwich have been identified as “disproportionately impacted areas,” which receive preferential treatment for cannabis business licenses, said Kevin Brown, executive director of NCDC.
The identified census tracts, including in Norwich, were chosen based on unemployment rates and percent of residents who have been convicted in drug crimes — a way of steering benefits to places hardest hit by the now-discredited war on drugs launched by former President Richard Nixon in 1971.
“If the state has recognized that Norwich should and stands to gain from that then we should take advantage of that opportunity,” Brown said.
Restrictions in other communities “indicate to us here to leverage and seize that opportunity,” he added.
The law allows municipalities to impose a 3 percent sales tax on cannabis businesses, which could have a huge impact in a city the size of Norwich, Brown said. He spoke with one potential cannabis retailer who gave him a “conservative estimate” of $20 million in sales annually.
“Three percent of $20 million is a good chunk of change for the city,” Brown said. Given Norwich is authorized to have two retail facilities, that could result in over $1 million in local tax revenue.
“You can hire 20 cops with that money,” he said. “You can hire 20 youth and family services staff with that money.”