Pot farm request going to Swansea residents

The farm of more than 50 acres is just south of Cummings Road and Locust Street in the rural northern part of town.

SWANSEA – For the second time in three months, voters will go to a town meeting to address the issue of recreational pot.

This time it’s about changing the zoning bylaw to allow the growing of cannabis in an agricultural zone. Specifically it applies to the third-generation Chadwick farm at 751 Hortonville Road.

The farm of more than 50 acres is just south of Cummings Road and Locust Street in the rural northern part of town.

Voters need to put two dates on their calendars:

• Aug. 20, at a time to be determined and presumably at Joseph Case High School, will be a special Town Meeting that right now is exclusively to vote on an article to amend the zoning bylaws on cultivating legalized marijuana.

The STM was requested by citizen petition Monday, and with the necessary 200 certified signatures of registered voters the Board of Selectmen voted unanimously Wednesday to set the session within the required 45 days of the petition.

The board members said they had no choice, by law, but to set a STM date.

• Aug. 1 at 6 p.m. at police headquarters, 1700 G.A.R. Highway, when the Planning Board will hold a required public hearing on the amendment.

The question would ask voters to approve “recreational marijuana cultivator as accessory use of land used for the primary purpose of agriculture, horticulture, floriculture or viticulture,” according to the proposed citizen bylaw change.

If voted in the affirmative by a two-thirds majority of voters, the use would also require a special permit issued by the Zoning Board of Appeals, confirmed John Hansen, who began working as Swansea town planner this month.

The user would also be required to obtain state licensing.

The change would have a commercial users section inserted into the bylaw listing the marijuana cultivator as “an entity licensed or seeking a license to cultivate, process and package marijuana, to deliver marijuana to marijuana establishments and to transfer marijuana to other marijuana establishments, but not to consumers.” Its size is set by state law.

The proposal is not entirely new.

In April the town was considering three articles for the annual Town Meeting to set regulations on soon-to-be-legalized recreational marijuana distribution. They were to allow recreational marijuana in the same manufacturing zones as medical marijuana, set the maximum 3 percent tax on gross sales of pot and limiting the number of such stores to two, based upon roughly 20 percent of the town’s nine liquor stores.

All three articles passed unanimously and without discussion at the May 21 ATM.

Chadwick had asked the board at an April discussion to modify the articles so he could lease/sell his more than 50-acre tract on Hortonville Road for marijuana growing.

Two young men raised in this area and in their mid-20s, Shane Hyde and George Friedlander, propose using their business and cultivation skills to set up a marijuana farm, said attorney Will Flanagan, the former Fall River mayor, who is representing them.

Hyde, who’s worked in hedge funds in the New York area for several years, had told The Herald News he’d expect 3 percent of gross sales to generate $450,000 to $550,000 a year when their business was fully operational with greenhouses on up to 14 acres of the Chadwick farm.

Flanagan said Thursday that estimate is accurate and “we would be content with using 5-10 acres of land.”

The remainder would be used for current forms of agriculture and open space, Chadwick reported.

Flanagan said the newly established company is called Fuego Cannabis. It means “fire” in Spanish, a reference to the term meaning “top tier cannabis,” Flanagan said.

He said Friedlander, from Fall River, was growing recreational marijuana in California and would be the operational manager. He’s moved back to Greater Fall River.

Benefits beside the specific dollar revenue to the town Flanagan listed included 7-10 jobs initially and two-dozen or more in the longer term; revitalizing this agricultural area that’s been mostly dormant; and adding community “good will” by the business donating to non-profit entities.

“We want to be in Swansea,” Flanagan said.

Based upon their grass roots, door to door soliciting of voter signatures, he said, “I feel the residents are very open to the prospect of using that land for growing cannabis.”

Flanagan said he disagreed with the town’s interpretation that cannabis could not be grown in an agricultural zone.

During a 10-minute discussion at the Board of Selectmen’s meeting, Chairman Derek Heim and Vice Chairman Steven Kitchin said their calling for the article being placed on a STM warrant, was “procedural.”

Kitchin said his comments as a town leader to the zoning bylaw change would come at another time, although he did not hide his position.

“Personally, I’m vigorously opposed to this change,” Kitchin said at the board’s meeting, which was televised on Swansea Cable Access.

Email Michael Holtzman at mholtzman@heraldnews.com or call him at 508-676-2573.