Northampton has become the first municipality in Massachusetts to stop charging local marijuana operators an annual “community impact fee,” after Mayor David Narkewicz said his community has seen few negative effects after years of hosting cannabis companies.
The city has so far collected over $2.6 million in such ongoing, automatic payments, which are typically pegged at 3 percent of a company’s annual revenue — the legal maximum — and are ostensibly intended to offset potential impacts of marijuana operations such as increased traffic or drug use.
Under a new policy announced earlier this month, however, Northampton officials won’t charge local cannabis firms anything unless their facilities impose a specific cost or impact.
“When the regulations were first put in place and we were negotiating host community agreements, I don’t think anyone knew what the potential impacts would be,” Narkewicz said in an interview Friday. “But now, given more experience, we understand that in most respects these businesses operate like any other business, and none of the impacts they do have lead me to believe they should be treated differently.”
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