Retail Marijuana Sales Banned By Lexington With Special Town Meeting Vote

LEXINGTON, MA -- Lexington joined other area towns with a Special Town Meeting vote Wednesday that banned recreational marijuana sales in the town. The measure, which passed 109-34 with six abstentions does not impact medical marijuana.

The vote to ban recreational marijuana sales in Lexington mirrors debates playing out for legislative bodies in a band of towns along Route 128 north of Boston that all voted against the last fall’s ballot question to legalize recreational marijuana use and sales in Massachusetts. Starting in Bedford, the list of towns voting “no” on Question 4 in November's general election winds east and includes Lexington, Burlington, Woburn, Winchester, Stoneham, Reading, Wakefield, Saugus, Lynnfield, Peabody, Danvers and Wenham. No town voted overwhelmingly against legalization: the biggest margin was in Lynnfield, where 60.1% voted against the ballot question. In Woburn, just 50.7% of voters opposed legalized cannabis. The new laws do not apply to medical marijuana facilities and sales.

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Almost all of the towns in Massachusetts that voted against question four are considering or have adopted laws that will ban recreational marijuana sales. In Lexington, 9,561 voters, or 52.7%, opposed Question 4 while 8,589 voters, or 47.3%, supported it.

Statewide, the measure passed by a margin of 1,745,394 to 1,511,747. Earlier this year, the state legislature passed a “compromise bill” that reworked the law to address concerns in the original language of the law. One of the biggest changes in the compromise bill was giving towns where the measure failed more leeway to ban recreational marijuana sales. That bill directly led to Wednesday night's vote by Lexington Special Town meeting.

Now backers recreational marijuana use, sales and possessionn are pushing for new laws allowing would penalize towns and cities like Lexington. While their plan is admittedly facing steep odds of working, those legalized marijuana backers are pushing state legislatures to make sure towns that ban marijuana sales do not get any of the state tax revenue that will be generated from the sales.

By passing the measure, Lexington lost its chance to collect a three percent, local sales tax on recreational marijuana sales. But now, if the group's proposal works, it will also be unable to tap into the pool of money that will come from the state's 17% sales tax on marijuana sales.

"Municipalities shouldn’t be entitled to something they took no part in," Kamani Jefferson, who runs the Mass. Recreational Consumer Council, told the Boston Globe, which originally reported on the proposal. The proposal "would force their hand and really encourage them to let these businesses in."

How much tax revenue will be generated is a question open for debate. Shawn McCormack, a litigation, real estate and environmental attorney in the cannabis group at the Boston-based law firm Davis Malm, said there have been varying estimates of how big the legal marijuana market will be in Massachusetts, so it's impossible to accurately predict how much towns could collect from the 3% sales tax, which would be on top of a 17% state sales tax on marijuana.

"Nobody really knows how large the recreational marijuana market will be, but estimates are between $700 million and $1.3 billion in sales in the first two years, meaning this could be a significant revenue source for municipalities," McCormack told Patch.

Top: Patch file photo.

Dave Copeland can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).