Malden MA’s Backdoor Effort To Stifle Cannabis Shops Fails In Court
Only 55 of the city’s 13,454 parcels of land fit the zoning requirement
On its surface, Malden’s zoning bylaw restricting cannabis businesses might seem justifiable. City officials didn’t want marijuana sold near houses, schools, day cares, religious facilities, parks, or drug treatment centers. So they established buffer zones of varying size around those sites, from 75 to 500 feet, where cannabis businesses were forbidden.
Dig deeper, however, and it’s clear that Malden’s rules made it nearly impossible for a cannabis business to open in the city. Only 55 of the city’s 13,454 parcels of land fit the zoning requirements, according to an engineer who testified in a related court case, and other regulatory requirements ruled out some of those.
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