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Date: 1/11/2023
SOUTHWICK – Residents of Southwick have begun receiving forms to fill out for the annual town census, and with it they will also receive a survey about the potential for recreational cannabis businesses in Southwick.
The survey being sent out with the census and posted on the town’s website is very simple, asking a single yes or no question: Should recreational cannabis retailers be permitted in the town of Southwick?
Recreational cannabis consumption and sales have been legal in Massachusetts since voters approved a ballot measure in 2016. The first retail marijuana sales did not take place until 2018. That same year in May, Southwick voters had opted not to allow retail cannabis sales in town.
A provision of the ballot measure allows for individual municipalities to prohibit cannabis sales, which several dozen communities chose to do, including Southwick.
In September, four years after the first cannabis sales took place in the state, the Southwick Select Board’s newest member, Jason Perron, asked his fellow board members if the town could revisit the decision it made in 2018. Perron, who is also a police officer in neighboring Westfield, said that there had been no discernible increase in crime related to cannabis retailers in the city, and touted the potential tax revenue.
“It would be nothing but a positive for the town,” Perron said Jan. 8.
Perron said he never has used cannabis personally, but that allowing such businesses to open in Southwick could provide a relatively significant amount of tax revenue each year.
“Retail shops in Westfield brought in about $600,000 a year. That $600,000 could have almost funded the roof for Town Hall in Southwick,” said Perron.
Select Board Chair Russell Fox said Jan. 3 that the survey is non-binding, and is meant to give the town a sense of where overall opinions are five years after the initial Town Meeting vote and the beginning of retail sales elsewhere.
“We are only trying to check the pulse of the community,” said Fox.
In the event that the results of the survey are close, or even overwhelmingly in favor of dropping the prohibition, Fox said the question could be brought directly back to the voters in the Annual Town Meeting this May.
“If people want to change it, then we can get the lawyers and Planning Board involved,” said Fox.
Fox noted that Connecticut, which Southwick borders, is beginning its own legal cannabis sales this month. He said this means a cannabis shop in Southwick would be less of a draw for residents from neighboring Connecticut towns, but he also said that allowing cannabis retail and growing facilities would also be a way to create jobs in town.
But Perron said Jan. 8 that he does not think the legalization of cannabis in Connecticut will impact how much business a potential retail shop would get in Southwick. To his knowledge, the towns Southwick borders in Connecticut, Granby and Suffield, are not poised to have cannabis retail stores any time soon, and the state as a whole will be limited to 56 total licenses, compared to the nearly 400 licensed retailers in Massachusetts.
“We might as well take advantage of it. Marijuana tax revenue has surpassed alcohol by about $10 million,” said Perron. “[The Select Board] has a lot of say, the Planning Board has a lot of say, and I would like to see residents support it because it will just save them money.”
To take the survey online, residents can visit bit.ly/wn13rg.