By Suzanne Hodgson
Staff Writer

Arundel and Kennebunk are weighing their options for a medical marijuana dispensary within town limits.
Arundel held a public hearing Aug. 9 to hear from Maine Medical Marijuana Supply Inc. and listen to the public’s reaction. Kennebunk voters will decide whether to institute a six-month moratorium to look at where a dispensary might be placed in town.
Glenn Peterson of Maine Medical Marijuana Supply said his group is considering Arundel and Sanford because they are close to the geographic center of the district.
“We don’t want to be in a town where they don’t want us,” Peterson told Arundel selectmen.
Maine now allows one medicinal marijuana dispensary per medical district. There are eight medical districts in the state, including one that covers most of York County.
None of the first round submissions for York County met the standards of the Department of Health and Human Services.
During the Aug. 10 Kennebunk Selectmen’s meeting, Town Manager Barry Tibbetts told the crowd he had been approached by two dispensary groups.
“There is no current ordinance on our books that regulates that kind of thing,” Tibbetts said.
Tibbetts said he heard there was a lot of interest in locating the dispensary in Sanford. If the state in the future allows more than one dispensary per medical district, he wants Kennebunk to be prepared, he said.
Peterson first tried to open a dispensary in Poland, where he lives and does most of his growing, but another dispensary’s application was approved instead of his. Now Peterson is looking to York County to open a dispensary, with the possibility it could be in Arundel.
Peterson said he hoped to find a bank or other high-security building to use as a dispensary, but if he could not find one his organization would build, which would bring more tax dollars into the town. Peterson said he eventually would like to build a 20,0000- to 40,000-square-foot warehouse for a grow center.
A dispensary needs to have a high-security system in place with video cameras that could be hooked into the sheriff’s office, a large concrete safe and a team system in place for two dispensary employees to handle and weigh marijuana.
The building could be located near the Biddeford line along Route 1, but the actual storefront would have no markings or name that would indicate it was a medicinal marijuana dispensary.
For now, Peterson said he would have a fairly small clientele. The state allows him to grow no more than six plants per patient so the grow center would not have to be very big at first. Many of the marijuana varieties Peterson grows are not for recreational use. Peterson said many don’t lead to a “high” but relieve patients’ pain or other symptoms.
During the November 2009 election, when voters in the state approved legalization of medicinal marijuana, Arundel voted 1,020 in favor of legalizing and 614 against.
Voters in Kennebunk also approved legalization of medicinal marijuana by 63 percent during the November election, but Tibbetts suggested the six-month moratorium to explore zoning and code changes for dispensaries.
If approved by voters in November, the moratorium would be backdated to Aug. 3, the first time selectmen discussed the dispensaries. Selectmen can extend the moratorium another six months or more until they have worked out all the kinks in zoning, or they could put the new ordinances on the ballot as early as June.
No dispensaries can set up in town while the moratorium is in place.
Kennebunk and Arundel will continue to discuss new zoning changes for dispensaries over the next few months.