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$DUTV Work to begin on Leominster medical pot dispensary
By Peter Jasinski, [e-mail]

POSTED: Friday, Feb. 9, 2018 - 6:32 a.m.

LEOMINSTER -- Prime Wellness Centers, which was granted the city's first special permit to open a medical marijuana dispensary last year, could be open as early as this spring, a company spokesman said Thursday.

"I'm sure everything is lining itself up so that by late spring they would be open, but that's more based on what the contractors are doing," said company spokesman Pat Scorzelli. "Maybe by May or June they would be up and running."

Plans for the company's proposed dispensary at 1775 Lock Drive were submitted to the city's building department for review on Feb. 5 and department clerk Marina Proietti said the permit was being processed on Thursday.

Once the permit is issued, construction on the facility can officially begin.

"Everything's moving forward. They're going to be building up the facilities right now and that's what's being done," Scorzelli said.

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It was during a March 2017 meeting of the City Council that Prime Wellness Centers was granted a special permit to open, allowing it to become the city's first-ever medical marijuana dispensary. Its application was chosen out of a handful of of other companies from across the country that applied to open facilities in Leominster in 2016. Limitations put in place by the City Council at that time mean that Prime Wellness Centers would be the city's only medical dispensary, unless the council decides the city should permit more to open.

Prior to the councils' vote to approve the special permit application, city officials like interim Police Chief Michael Goldman and city Health Director Christopher Knuth praised the company and its proposed location on Lock Drive.

"If every pharmacy in the city had a plan as strong as them, we'd be a lot better off," Goldman said at the time. "They have way more security than a pharmacy that sells Oxycontin."

Roughly located between the Mall at Whitney Field and Route 2, the dispensary's Lock Drive location follows the city's zoning regulations on medical marijuana, which limit dispensaries to industrially zoned areas and keep them beyond 500 feet of residences and churches and 1,000 feet from schools, parks, playgrounds, and child care facilities.

Once the dispensary is up and running, the city will also be able to start reaping the financial benefits of the community host agreement signed by Prime Wellness Centers and Mayor Dean Mazzarella last year.

Under this agreement, Leominster is expected to collect at least $420,000 in the dispensary's first four years of operation. Prime Wellness Centers would pay out $50,000 or 1.25 percent of their gross revenues, depending on which is greater, within 30 days of the dispensaries first year in operations, as well as an additional $35,000 stipend.

In the dispensary's second year, the city would receive $75,000 or 1.25 percent of gross revenues plus a stipend on $20,000. The city would get $100,000 or 2.5 percent of gross revenues plus a $20,000 stipend in the third year, and from the fourth year on would either get the minimum required sum from the previous year with an additional 2.5 percent or 2.5 percent of gross revenues if that is greater, as well as an additional $20,000 stipend.

Scorzelli said Prime Wellness Centers will also soon begin construction on another dispensary in Worcester and is working through the permitting process to build a third facility in Shrewsbury.


http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/news/ci_31654976/work-begin-leominster-medical-pot-dispensary