Advocates, lawmakers, and former regulators urged a legislative committee on Tuesday to provide more oversight of required contracts between municipalities and cannabis businesses, arguing that the system continues to be exploited by some cities and towns, which creates a barrier for small- and minority-owned businesses to get started in the industry.
The issue of host community agreements has been one fraught with tension as people in the industry have argued for years that negotiations are often "one-sided," with the municipalities controlling all the leverage.
The result, according to testimony given to the Joint Committee on Cannabis Policy, are agreements that often violate the limits put on how much cities and towns can charge cannabis businesses for traffic, public safety, and other impacts they have on a community.
The committee held a hearing Tuesday on nine bills focused on host community agreements, returning to an issue the House tried to address with legislation it passed last February, before the COVID-19 pandemic put most other issues on the back burner.
Read more at wbjournal.com