This story by Christina Dolan was first published in The Valley News on Oct. 17.
SHARON — A proposal to convert a former diner into a marijuana dispensary has been snuffed out by voters. Residents took to the polls Tuesday and narrowly rejected an option to allow retail cannabis in town by a vote of 137 to 135.
The result puts a risk a plan by Chelsea resident Sean Trombly to turn Sandy’s, a former diner that closed following a 2022 fire, into a retail cannabis dispensary that was to include an ice cream stand.
Trombly, 31, operates a cannabis cultivation operation in Chelsea called Trombly’s House of Cannabis and recently purchased the Sandy’s building on Route 14 in Sharon. In August, he presented the selectboard with a petition signed by 5% of Sharon’s voters asking it to bring the issue to a vote.
Tuesday’s results were “surprising and devastating,” Trombly said by phone on Wednesday. “A lot of people have reached out today asking us to petition for a revote,” he said. He’s uncertain if he will.
For now, he’s halting all of the renovation work on the Sandy’s building until he knows what his next step is.
“Ultimately I’ll use the property for something, but cannabis is currently the only retail option” he is considering, he said.
Meanwhile, those is Sharon opposed to retail cannabis were celebrating.
“I’m delighted that they voted against it,” Sharon resident Alexandre Bird, 70, said by phone Wednesday. Bird worried about modern cannabis products’ high levels of THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive component of marijuana that produces its high.
“This isn’t your father’s pot,” he said.
Research on cannabis potency has shown a more than tenfold increase in THC levels over the past 50 years, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. From the 1960s through the 1980s, the average THC levels hovered around 2%. Potency levels started to rise steadily in the late 1990s, reaching into the double digits roughly in 2010. In 2022, the average THC level in illegal cannabis seized by the Drug Enforcement Agency was about 16%.
Vermont statute limits the THC content in cannabis flower products to 30%, and edibles to 5 mg per serving. Solid concentrates can contain up to 60% THC, and liquid concentrates — those used in vape cartridges and tinctures — have no potency limits.
Bird also had concerns about how close the proposed cannabis shop would be to schools, he said. The Sandy’s location is roughly a mile from the town’s elementary school, as well as The Sharon Academy’s high school and middle school campuses. Cannabis retailers are not allowed within 500 feet of a school property, according to the Cannabis Control Board’s guidance on “buffer zones.”
Sharon resident Michael Waterman, 55, was disappointed in Tuesday’s results, and “all the false narratives that were being pushed,” before the vote, he said.
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He wasn’t swayed by concerns about allowing cannabis sales near schools. “You can see a liquor store and a place that sells tobacco and vapes from the middle school ball field,” he said.
The nearest cannabis retailers to Sharon are in Bethel and White River Junction, each of which is about a 15 minute drive from town. Waterman travels to White River Junction to purchase cannabis products at The Tea House, he said.
“I get my gas, drinks, and munchies from the store in WRJ because it’s more convenient,” than the Maplefields in Sharon, he said. A yes vote in favor of retail cannabis would have brought a “much needed small business” to Sharon, he added.
The rejection of retail cannabis in Sharon comes on the eve of a decision by the state’s Cannabis Control Board to stop issuing new retail and cultivator licenses effective Oct. 25.
Speaking a week before Tuesday’s vote, Trombly was confident that if Sharon’s voters approved retail cannabis sales, he would meet the control board’s deadline. His plan was to operate two separate establishments in the Sandy’s building, one selling cannabis products, and another selling food and ice cream and hosting food trucks.
Since it legalized recreational cannabis sales in 2022, Vermont has required each town to “opt in” to allowing retail sales through a public vote.
So far, 77 towns in Vermont have opted into retail cannabis sales, and the state has 86 licensed retail locations. In the Upper Valley, the towns of Bethel, Bradford, Fairlee, Hartford, Randolph, Strafford, Windsor and Woodstock have opted in to retail sales. In addition to White River Junction and Bethel, there are shops in Bradford, Fairlee, Randolph, Windsor and Woodstock.
Most Upper Valley towns that have held votes on retail cannabis have approved it. In Woodstock, voters opted to allow retail cannabis sales in the town, but not in the village. Only a handful of Vermont towns have rejected retail cannabis at the polls, including Ryegate, Highgate, Vernon, New Haven and Castleton.
The opt-in strategy has created an uneven distribution of cannabis retailers, with a clustering of shops in some higher-population areas such as Burlington, Rutland and Montpelier.
Out of concern for the impacts on retailers of saturated markets, the control board decided to temporarily halt all retail and cultivation licenses beginning Oct. 25.
There is currently no timeline for how long the pause on retail and cultivation licenses, which starts next Friday, might last, adding another layer of uncertainty for Trombly.
“Ultimately it is part of our business plan to add a retail location,” he said. As to when and where that might happen, “I’m really not sure at this time,” he added.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Sharon voters reject retail cannabis.