TYNGSBORO – The owners of MJ’s Market, the proposed cannabis dispensary at 405-409 Middlesex Road, have asked the Board of Selectmen for help as they fight a lawsuit filed by an existing cannabis dispensary just down the street.
Nature’s Remedy, located at 426 Middlesex Road, appealed the special permit and variance granted to MJ’s Market last year. With this appeal underway, MJ’s Market cannot begin work on the property. Nature’s Remedy has also raised traffic safety concerns in its objections to the MJ market.
The property at 405-409 Middlesex Road is the site of what Tyngsboro residents derogatorily call “the yellow house.” It’s a ramshackle, vacant ranch-style home that City Manager Matt Hanson says is “the gateway to our city.”
At this week’s Select Board meeting, Hanson said he tried to convince Nature’s Remedy to drop the lawsuit in a discussion with officials from the Florida-based holding company that now owns the local dispensary. It was not successful.
“We want to see something worthwhile go where the yellow house is,” Select board member Katerina Kalabokis said as the board discussed its options with the lawsuit.
Tyngsboro’s board of selectmen, planning board and zoning board of appeals are also named in the lawsuit filed in Massachusetts Superior Court last November.
Brian Foley, co-founder of MJ’s Market, told Select Board members, “These actions have severely damaged MJ’s Market’s prospects for success in the 405-409 with nine months of lawsuit delays to date.”
Foley told the board his company has an alternate location if the lawsuit drags on. That plan calls for a dispensary to open at 80 Locust Ave., behind the Dream Diner, which faces Middlesex Road.
Nature’s Remedy, which opened two years ago, is on the south side of the highway with traffic coming down from New Hampshire. The MJ market would be located on the north side with traffic directed to New Hampshire, the only New England state that does not currently allow dispensaries for the recreational use of marijuana.
A year after Nature’s Remedy opened, Florida-based Jushi Holdings Inc. acquired it for $91.2 million. The sale included a second dispensary in Millbury and a cultivation facility in Lakeville.
Foley gave an update on the lawsuit, telling the board that the discovery period ended last week and that he is scheduled to make a statement on Friday. Jushi/Nature’s Remedy has until August 31 to submit expert reports and a traffic study. MJ’s will then have until September 30 to file their rebuttal.
A traffic study has been done for a proposed non-dispensary warehouse to be located next to Nature’s Remedy. This study was intended to support the placement of a traffic light at its entrance.
But according to Heath Gaffney, the other co-founder of MJ’s Market, that report showed there isn’t enough traffic to warrant a light. Speaking after the meeting, Gaffney noted that plans for the warehouse call for a shared driveway with Nature’s Remedy.
Gaffney also noted that a craft brewery is in the works at 394 Middlesex Road in the building that once housed the Best Friends Pet Hotel. Nature’s Remedy has raised no traffic objections to either the warehouse or the brewery.
The Select Board has asked for more detailed information, especially financial information and plans for the yellow house.
Select board chairman Ron Keohane asked that Foley and Gaffney provide that information a week before the Aug. 22 board meeting so members have time to review it.
Harris Shain, an attorney for Jushi Holdings, did not return requests for comment.
