WILTON — The Wilton Board of Selectpersons approved multiple licenses for cannabis on Tuesday, Oct. 3, as well as signed a warrant for the upcoming special town meeting.
The Select Board voted unanimously to approve the warrant as written for a special town meeting, scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 17 at 6 p.m., which will put into effect a moratorium on cannabis operation licenses in the town as well as approve changes to Wilton’s cannabis ordinances.
Shane Gardiner, owner of an unverified cannabis operation in Wilton, and Frank Berenyi, owner of Marijaunaville in Waterville, both had their applications for cannabis operations approved by the Select Board at the meeting and will be the last ones to get approval before the moratorium goes into effect.
Berenyi, who appeared before the planning board in September, purchased the property located at 3 Bryant Road, which he plans on turning into his third medical cannabis store.
Gardiner’s license will come with a $50 fine due to a lapse in his application, which was noted by Town Manager Perry Ellsworth. According to Ellsworth, Code Enforcement Officer Gary Judkins discovered the lapse in the application and brought it to his attention. Ellsworth went on to stress to the Select Board members that are apart of cannabis ordinance committee [Selectpersons Mike Wells and Keith Swett] that he would suggest moving the renewal dates of the cannabis licenses to one single period during the year.
“It’s up to the owner of the business to apply,” Ellsworth stated. “It’s not up to us to chase them for their license.”
Ellsworth continued to say that he wanted to see more consequences put into the ordinances for those who don’t abide by them, saying, “I’m suggesting that in the new ordinance that we set a date that they’re all due. If their application doesn’t come in, we fine them. That’s what we’ve talked about in some of our previous conversations, putting some teeth into stuff.”
Wells responded to this statement, stating current ordinances “had teeth”, but they were not being enforced.
“Perry mentioned that we are rewriting the ordinance to have some teeth,” Wells said, “but in the past, even right now, the ordinance that we have has teeth which we have not utilized.”
“We could have denied four licenses the last go around and we didn’t deny those licenses, even though they had been doing business without a permit from the town,” Wells said, referencing an incident from a previous Select Board meeting in September, wherein four cannabis growth operations were working in the town of Wilton without proper licenses. The Select Board approved the four licenses in a vote of four to one, with Wells voting against.
“We also have to have a code enforcement officer that can and has the right qualifications to levy a fine or a stop work order,” Wells said.
“That is one of the reasons why we increased the code enforcement from 20 hours a week to 40 hours a week,” Selectperson David Leavitt said to Wells, “So that they could be active enforcement on all permits, and all ordinances.”
Wells continued to assert that current Code Enforcement Officer Gary Judkins lacked the proper certification to levy fines, which Ellsworth denied. He continued to say that the language of the ordinances was vague and needed to be rewritten to reduce negative interpretation.
“If the ordinance is written correctly,” he stated, “there’ll be no question, or we can hold somebody accountable for not taking care of it, whether it’s the code officer, or the individual.”
Chairperson Tiffany Maiuri gave an example of the type of language that needed to be improved in the new ordinance, stating “That is why we have a moratorium that we’re proposing, so we can rewrite the ordinance so it’s clear in the ordinance where it does say ‘the Select Board may not grant licenses’. There’s a difference between ‘may’ and ‘shall’. There is absolutely no misinterpretation. ‘Shall not’ or ‘May not’.”
Judkins, who was present at the meeting, refuted Wells’ claims that he did not have the proper certification. “Perry and I talked about this from March, the day I found out [about the four cannabis growth operations] and we both have been in agreement every step of the way about those four licenses that you want to reference so much.
“We have been in agreement,” he continued. “We have talked it out. We have brought in [Office of Cannabis Policy] to discuss this issue. So if you sit there and tell everybody I’m not able to do my job, that is a falsehood. I have many certificates for my position.”
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