Northampton city councilors voted late Thursday night to place a new limit on the city’s collection of cannabis dispensaries — effectively an upper ceiling for how many pot shops the city allows to do business.
The vote, coming after months of deliberation, represented a significant step for a city known as a hub of Massachusetts’ retail cannabis industry. In 2018, Northampton became one of the first two Massachusetts towns with a recreational cannabis dispensary. Today, it has 11 operating dispensaries, a collection comparable to the much larger cities of Boston and Worcester.
Unlike many other communities, Northampton never elected to set a limit on its number of pot shops — until Thursday.
As the new measure goes into effect, here are a few things to know about what it means — and doesn’t mean — for the city and the local cannabis market. Have a question that isn’t answered below? Send it to wkatcher@masslive.com.
NETA, Northampton’s first dispensary, opened in Nov. 2018. It was one of the first places to buy legal recreational cannabis on the East Coast. (Don Treeger / The Republican)
What does the cannabis dispensary cap do?
The regulation passed Thursday night will hold the city to a dozen dispensaries — sort of.
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