Great Barrington — The Selectboard is scheduled to hold an executive session at the beginning of its meeting on Monday, March 11, at 5 p.m.
According to the meeting’s agenda, the executive session is scheduled with respect to litigation threatened against the town concerning Host Community Agreements for marijuana establishments Theory Wellness and Community Growth Partners, which owns Rebelle dispensary.
Thomas Winstanley, chief marketing officer for Theory Wellness, forwarded a letter to The Berkshire Edge sent to the town by David Rich, an attorney with Todd & Weld LLP of Boston and is the legal counsel for both companies.
In the letter, which was sent to Town Manager Mark Pruhenski on February 27, Rich wrote that Theory Wellness signed its Host Community Agreement with the town on October 17, 2016, and another one on June 18, 2018. Community Growth Partners signed its Host Community Agreement with the town on March 20, 2019.
“During the term of the parties’ respective HCA, both Theory Wellness and CGP have been forced to tender to the town millions of dollars in unlawful Community Impact Fees, legal fees and additional costs, payments, and reimbursements,” Rich wrote. “It further appears that the town is unjustifiably refusing to negotiate or enter into new HCAs, ones which comply with the actual requirements of Massachusetts law, with either of my clients until such time as each pays the town additional unlawful fees. The town’s conditioning its willingness to enter into a new, legally compliant HCA upon the requirement that my clients make patently illegal payments to the town is extortionate in fact, and reflects yet another violation of their legal rights.”
Rich goes on to write that “Theory Wellness demands that the Town immediately return to it the sum of $5,182,769.67, plus accrued statutory interest. CGP demands that the Town tender to it the sun of $526,380, plus accrued statutory interest” and that the funds be paid to both companies immediately. “Should the town fail and refuse to comply with these basic demands, I have been authorized to commence suit,” Rich wrote. “As your counsel will confirm, and as contemplated by the newly enacted cannabis regulations, Theory Wellness and CGP will be entitled to recover their reasonable attorneys’ fees if successful in any litigation against the town.”
Via Winstanley, the companies issued the following joint statement:
Theory Wellness and Rebelle have requested that the Town return illegal impact fees which we have been forced to pay over the years despite the Town of Great Barrington repeatedly acknowledging in writing that our businesses caused no negative impacts. On the contrary, in addition to our impact fees, we have paid millions of dollars in taxes, employed dozens, and brought hundreds of thousands of visitors to the area.
A Host Community Agreement is a unique regulatory requirement for the cannabis industry in Massachusetts and unlike any regulatory requirement in any other state. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 94G requires that any fees charged under a Host Community Agreement (HCA) must only be used to offset the ‘costs imposed upon the municipality by the operation of the marijuana establishment.’
To ensure that HCA money is spent legally, the Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) requires that every year we ask Great Barrington to calculate and disclose the costs they incurred.
Every year we have asked for, and every year we have received in writing, a calculation of the costs incurred by the Town of Great Barrington. Each year the Town’s calculation states that the amount is $0 – stating that “no significant costs,” have been incurred.
Therefore, despite the Town acknowledging in writing that it has incurred no costs arising from our operations, we have been assessed, year after year, millions of dollars in impact fees. These fees cannot legally be used and must be returned as other towns around the Commonwealth have now been doing (see Boston, Uxbridge, etc.)
It is important to note that Impact Fees are different and separate from the taxes we pay to the Town. What many may not realize, is that we have paid to the Town of Great Barrington over $5 million in taxes, in addition to the $5 million in impact fees.
We have made numerous attempts to engage directly with the Town over the last year to resolve this issue but have been repeatedly ignored and/or dismissed. We hope that the Selectboard on Monday decides to adhere to the law so that we do not have to end up in court at the taxpayers’ expense.
Click here to view the letter sent to the town by David Rich from Todd & Weld LLP.
