Jeering and name-calling marked a contentious Dec.19 community outreach meeting over a proposed cannabis cultivation facility on South Shaker Road. More than 80 people, some Harvard residents and some from elsewhere, turned out to hear a proposal by Apple Guy Flowers LLC, a new company that aims to grow marijuana at Thayer Family Farms at 92 South Shaker Road. Sole proprietor Lucas Thayer, his legal counsel, Michael Maloney, and Marion McNabb, CEO of Cannabis Community Care and Research Network, presented Apple Guy Flowers’ plans.
Thayer has already grown cannabis in a fenced-off area of the property, which his family owns. Thayer stated that he has never cultivated more than 12 cannabis plants (the legal limit in Massachusetts for two adults living in the same household), and that he did not grow any during the past year.
He has applied for a Class 2 cultivation license, which would allow 5,000 to 10,000 square feet of growing area (this translates to a 70-by-70 to 100-by-100 foot area). According to Thayer, Apple Guy Flowers would grow just 12 marijuana plants within this space. (While growing these 12 plants for personal use would require no licensing, selling the produce of those plants would.) He expects his plants to be 8 to 10 feet tall, and he plans to plant them at least 20 feet from one another, asserting that this level of care for each individual plant would produce a higher quality product.
He expects a yield of two to five pounds of cannabis per plant annually, for 24 to 60 total pounds of product, and that each pound of cannabis could sell for $5,000. This would give the business up to $300,000 gross annual revenue. According to Thayer, he would work alone for most of the year but would contract up to five workers during busy times. Thayer explained that Apple Guy Flowers does not intend to engage in retail sale, processing, or transportation. He would sell his raw product wholesale to one or more of the retail sales establishments in the state.
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