ORANGE — How many recreational marijuana retail stores should be allowed in town?
It’s a question brought up at Selectboard meetings, Planning Board meetings and outreach sessions with Silver Therapeutics Inc., the company slated to open a marijuana shop on South Main Street this year.
The question has gone unanswered, and there is no legal way for Orange to limit the number of recreational retail marijuana operations setting up in town.
Now, the Selectboard is reviewing a Tyngsborough bylaw as a model for a potential Orange bylaw that would limit the number of recreational retail marijuana stores allowed in town to no more than 20 percent of the town’s off-site liquor licenses.
Orange has six such licenses issued, meaning only two recreational pot shops would be allowed in town if a bylaw was currently in place. The Selectboard is set to discuss the Tyngsborough model Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at the Town Hall.
“The question was raised by the Selectboard: How do we limit these? Do we limit these? How many of these do we do? Because they keep coming up and we have a lot of them in the background right now that want to apply,” said Town Administrator Gabriele Voelker at Wednesday’s Selectboard meeting.
According to Voelker, there are five or six companies seriously interested in coming to Orange to sell recreational marijuana.
Silver Therapeutics already has a purchase agreements in place for 5 South Main St., where it hopes to sell medical and recreational marijuana, and 158 Governor Dukakis Drive, where it plans to have a cultivation facility. The company also has a letter of non-opposition and a Host Community Agreement from the Selectboard to do business.
In addition, Fidelity Wellness Center Inc. has a letter of non-opposition and a Host Community Agreement, but for only a greenhouse to grow marijuana, not a store, at the Randall Pond Industrial Park off R.W. Moore Drive.
The marijuana industry is increasingly competitive and burgeoning, with the state issuing its first licenses to sell recreational marijuana, and the town should have a criteria for what companies are allowed in, Voelker said.
“We need some kind of a standard when these people apply that they follow,” Voelker said.
Voelker has been working with Katherine D. Laughman, an attorney for the law firm Kopelman & Paige, who also worked on the Tyngsborough bylaw.
According to Voelker, one of Laughman’s main pieces of advice was for the town to create a coherent process for applicants, regardless of whether the town chooses to limit the number of stores.
“Because this is such a competitive field and people are coming at you like a freight train, you need to have a process where you can tell them you want their business plan, their security plan, how they’re going to maintain their buildings,” Voelker said.
The Tyngsborough bylaw outlines three areas — or plans — a recreational marijuana store must comply with in order to operate in town: a confidential security plan detailing how marijuana will be stored and transferred, an operation and management plan dealing with business practices like hours of operation, and an emergency response plan to be reviewed by the fire and police departments.
“There is a whole litany of things that we should require before they come before us,” Voelker said.
Another recommendation from Laughman, Voelker said, was having applicants pay for the town’s legal expenses and fees related to vetting and working with potential recreational marijuana operations.
The Tyngsborough bylaw the Selectboard is reviewing only applies to recreational marijuana retail stores, not medical marijuana, which cannot be legally limited in the same manner.
“We need to decide as a town how many retail stores do we want to allow in the center of town. Right now, we have nothing in place to limit that,” Voelker said. “Without thinking about doing a bylaw to limit that, we leave ourselves open to have four, five, six and you can’t say no to them. We have no vehicle to say no to them.”
The other body in town that must approve a recreational marijuana operation is the Planning Board, which makes sure fees are paid and general town zoning laws are considered.
The Planning Board is set to have a joint meeting with the Selectboard on Aug. 22, making it imperative for the Selectboard to have come up with its own set of guidelines before that date, Voelker said.
Selectboard Vice Chairwoman Jane Peirce said the town should have a legal option to deny certain companies, adding, “You need a basis for saying, ‘No, you’re not ready to come in.’”
Similarly, Selectboard Chairman Ryan Mailloux was encouraged to be talking about specific guidelines.
“It will be really good to have an actual process in place,” Mailloux said.