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Date: 2/23/2023
SOUTHWICK — With more than 1,000 respondents to the town’s recreational cannabis dispensary survey last month, the results were close, but most remained in favor of continuing to prohibit recreational cannabis shops from opening in town.
The survey received a total of 1,154 responses. Of those, 521 said they would like for Southwick to allow recreational cannabis shops, while 633 said the prohibition should continue.
Possession and consumption of recreational marijuana is legal in Southwick, as it is in all of Massachusetts, but the 2016 ballot question that legalized it allowed for individual municipalities to prohibit recreational marijuana dispensaries from opening in their towns. Voters in Southwick chose to do so at the 2018 Annual Town Meeting.
The survey is non-binding, with Select Board member Doug Moglin noting that it was an “unscientific survey” that is only meant to give a general sense of how Southwick residents feel about the issue five years after the first dispensaries opened in the state.
The issue was raised last year by Select Board member Jason Perron, who suggested that Southwick revisit it now that longer term real-world examples of legal dispensaries can be looked at in other Massachusetts communities. Though the results indicate that Southwick residents may want to continue with the dispensary ban, Perron said he would still be interested in putting it up for a real vote at this year’s Annual Town Meeting in May.
“The results of the survey are kind of a toss-up, so that is something I am looking forward to working to put on at the town meeting,” said Perron.
Moglin noted that if the issue is put back to the voters, it may require two votes with different thresholds to pass. The first vote would be to rescind the ban on non-medical marijuana establishments in Southwick and would require a simple majority to pass. The second vote would be to alter the zoning bylaws in Southwick to allow such establishments, which would require a two-thirds majority of town meeting voters.
Moglin said he found interesting the split in sentiment between those who responded to the survey online and those who sent in a physical copy. The online responses were 58 percent in favor and 42 percent against, while the physical surveys were nearly the opposite at 41 percent in favor and 59 percent against.
“You can’t infer anything about the demographics between online and paper responses,” said Moglin, but he noted that the nearly opposite responses were interesting to him.