Two years after Massachusetts voters approved medical marijuana, a messy and controversy-plagued state approval process has led to several applicants being disqualified, including two in Boston, and just 11 locations approved as of the beginning of this month.
Friday, the state Department of Public Health approved four more dispensaries, including the first in Boston, at 21 Milk Street between Washington and Devonshire Streets in the financial district. It would be operated by a company called Patriot Care, which also won licenses in Lowell earlier this year and Greenfield Friday. Also newly approved locations Friday were in Fairhaven and Taunton, to bring to 15 the total number of dispensaries approved. The law allows for up to 35, spread around the state's 14 counties.
The Milk Street dispensary, the site of several bank branches over the years, still needs to be approved for marijuana services by the Boston board of health and inspectional services department. And only after it gets those approvals can it begin growing marijuana, so it could be late 2015 or 2016 before any dispensary is in business.
Patriot Care president Robert Mayerson said in a telephone interview late Friday afternoon the company found the location attractive because it's close to all four MBTA transit lines and 12 bus routes. The company already operates medical marijuana operations in Arizona and the District of Columbia.
Mayor Marty Walsh said he has some questions. "We've had discussions about it. We certainly would like to have the community welcoming the dispensary, and I'm not exactly sure how the reaction is going to be on Milk Street," Walsh said. "We're going to now have to go through a process to find out how the community feels about it, how the businesses in the area feel about it."
"We still," Walsh added, "have a process to go through."
With videographer Tony Sabato
