A 500-foot buffer exists around schools
Drive-thru window at Mother Earth Wellness dispensary
According to Mother Earth Wellness dispensary owner Joe Pakuris, this is only retail cannabis drive thru in New England.
PROVIDENCE – Retail cannabis shops are officially an allowed use across Providence following a City Council vote on Thursday night to allow them in the city’s two commercial zones, downtown zone and its industrial zones.
Why it matters: Before, Providence’s zoning rules only allowed for the already existing medical marijuana operations, not the new retail stores recently legalized.
But it doesn’t matter right now: The Rhode Island Cannabis Commission (created in June 2023) still hasn’t issued rules or opened up license applications for would-be retailers.
And then there’s limited supply: Only 24 licenses will be issued for the entire state. The geographic area that includes Providence will get four licenses, but that area also includes Johnston, Lincoln, North Providence and Central Falls.
Those four licenses include two retail licenses, one social-equity license and one workers cooperative license.
Two sets of rules: The two retail licenses and the workers cooperative and social-equity license have one major difference:
Retail shops require a special permit in the C-2 zone, while social equity and workers cooperatives are permitted by right. Because of recent state law changes, this functionally means that retail shops would be required to go through a public meeting process but could not be denied if they met the requirements.
What changed since the zoning ordinance was first introduced? Since the ordinance was first vetted by the City Plan Commission, city councilors changed four things:
- Requiring “prominently” displayed signs about cannabis consumption laws
- Requiring applicants to notify abutters within 200 feet
- Additionally allowing locations in both industrial zones, but not the mixed-use industrial zone
- Eliminating a difference in parking requirements between retail and social-equity/worker cooperatives, which halved the number of spaces required for social-equity/worker cooperatives.
Both kinds of retail shops are now required to have one parking space per 1,000 square feet of building.
What are workers saying?
“It means the pathway to securing real estate has been opened up a lot more in Providence,” labor organizer Emma Karnes said. She is with the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 328.
What’s the feedback been?
Andre Dev, with the Community Cannabis Network, said much of the community anxiety has been over worries that a shop would open on every corner, which can’t happen, because the Johnston-Providence-North Providence-Central Falls area only gets four licenses.
“People should expect a dispensary to be in more central locations,” he said.
Where will cannabis shops be allowed?
Under the new ordinance, cannabis retailers would be allowed in the following zones:
- C-2 zone with a special permit
- C-3 zone by right
- Downtown by right
- Light industrial (M-1) by right
The city’s C-1 zone is slated to be subsumed into the C-2 zone following the adoption of the city’s new comprehensive plan.
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Reach reporter Wheeler Cowperthwaite at wcowperthwaite@providencejournal.com or follow him on X: @WheelerReporter.