Brookline’s budding marijuana industry is proving lucrative for the town: Since fiscal year 2017, marijuana retailers have paid out more than $4.7 million in community impact revenue, plus an additional $3 million from sales taxes.
The local pot industry began with Brookline Village’s New England Treatment Access, which opened the town’s first medical marijuana dispensary in 2016, following it up with the introduction of adult-use marijuana in March 2019.
Coolidge Corner’s Sanctuary Medicinals followed in August 2020, and Mission MA opened its Commonwealth Avenue location in August this year. Both Sanctuary and Mission offer only recreational marijuana.
Under their host community agreements (HCAs) — a contract between the business and the host municipality — Brookline’s marijuana retailers make two types of payments: community impact fees and excise taxes. Community impact fees cover expenses the town incurs from a pot shop’s impact on town services or systems, like law enforcement, public health and transportation. The excise tax comes out to 3% of gross revenue from the establishment’s sales.
Where does pot revenue go?
The fiscal 2022 budget broke down some of the uses for the host community agreement impact fees, with the biggest shares going to police and the Public Health Department.
Here are some of the FY22 line items for HCA revenue:
- Police personnel (includes police bike unit and enforcement of public consumption laws and parking regulations): $302,339
- Public health personnel (includes substance abuse counselors, a community health specialist, an epidemiologist and an environmental health policy analyst): $358,042
- Cannabis licensing and mitigation coordinator: $95,087
- Department of Public Works park and litter enforcement: $71,687
- Litter receptacles: $12,000
To date, Massachusetts adult-use marijuana retailers have pulled in $955 million in sales since Jan. 1, according to data from the state’s Cannabis Control Commission. The CCC reports $2.12 billion in total gross sales since the state’s first adult-use marijuana retailer opened in November 2018.
Will Brookline’s pot revenues continue to grow?
In the fiscal 2022 budget message, Town Administrator Mel Kleckner said the town “anticipate[s] a reduction in the growth of marijuana sales in Brookline resulting from the pandemic and more regional competition.”
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