Westerly council tables cannabis retail zoning after hours of public comment and amendment votes

The Westerly Town Council on July 1 opened a public hearing on proposed amendments to the town zoning and general ordinances to allow retail cannabis sales, heard more than an hour of testimony from neighbors and attorneys, debated several late amendments and ultimately voted to table the measures for further work.

Attorney Greg Masset, representing residents of the Wilder Avenue/Lawrence Street neighborhood, urged the council to require ingress and egress on arterial roads for any dispensary and to include an arterial-access requirement in the ordinance rather than leave it for later site review. Masset said the draft before the council could allow a dispensary in a location that lacks arterial access and asked councilors to “require it in the ordinance.”

Several residents and councilors also urged protections for neighborhoods and proposed tightening hours and setback distances. Anita Parmelee, a Westerly resident, said the council should learn from other cities and “be smart about how we do it,” citing long-term effects on traffic and neighborhood character. Attorney William Nardone, representing parties supporting the zoning change, said the ordinance is a town zoning measure and that site-specific questions — including ingress/egress and traffic impacts — are most appropriately addressed during the planning-board development-plan or special-use-permit review.

Councilors debated multiple amendment options during the hearing, including changing the permitted hours to mirror medical dispensary hours (a proposal to set retail hours to 9 a.m.–8 p.m.), adding or expanding distance buffers from residences, day cares and schools, and whether to require special-use permits. Solicitor and legal staff reviewed overlay-zone implications (aquifer/wellhead protection zones) and cautioned that deleting certain zone references could have unintended effects on other underlying zone allowances.

After extended discussion and several amendment votes, the council made and carried a motion to table the cannabis ordinances pending further drafting and legal review; the tabling motion was recorded as unanimous. The council left the public hearing open in form but the ordinances were taken from active consideration and will be returned to a future agenda if and when the council decides to resume the matter.