Jars of marijuana flowers are shown in June 2020 at a marijuana shop in Hallowell. A proposal to allow the sale of recreational marijuana is getting support from officials in neighboring Augusta, which would enable such stores to open up in the city. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal file

AUGUSTA — The cultivation, sale and purchase of recreational marijuana may soon be allowed in Maine’s capital city nearly eight years after statewide legalization took effect.

A proposal to allow recreational cannabis sales, cultivation, testing and manufacturing went through a first reading before the Augusta City Council on Thursday, the first of two readings required for passage.

Now, only medical marijuana businesses are allowed in Augusta, although neighboring communities such as Manchester and Hallowell allow retail sales just over the city line.

Some city councilors have said the city should also allow recreational cannabis businesses, to bring the city new tax revenues, provide access to a product residents already can purchase legally in several surrounding municipalities, and help ensure that marijuana sold in the city is safe because the product is tested when sold through legitimate businesses.

The Planning Board recommended changes to city ordinances and licensing rules, to add recreational cannabis to the city’s existing medical marijuana rules.

Essentially the city’s rules just needed to be modified by replacing medical marijuana with cannabis, according to development director Matt Nazar.

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“It makes the change from being about medical marijuana to simply being about cannabis, which means it would encompass all forms of cannabis sales and testing and manufacturing,” Nazar said. “In addition to that, it outlines the locations where those uses can occur in the city. They are the same locations where medical marijuana uses are already allowed.”

An additional change removes any cap on the number of cannabis businesses which operate in the city, which was limited to 15 in the city’s original medical marijuana ordinance. Augusta councilors, including Ward 3 Councilor Mike Michaud, said they favor free enterprise and said the market will determine how many marijuana-related businesses will remain open, and where, so the city shouldn’t regulate how many there should be.

Augusta City Manager Jared Mills said a proposed moratorium on manufacturing marijuana products using an extraction processes that uses butane, propane or other explosive substances to extract THC from cannabis isn’t yet part of the proposed changes. But that element could be added for councilors to consider at the second, and final, reading of the changes, likely to take place at the council’s business meeting next month.

Councilors previously expressed concern over that form of manufacturing being potentially dangerous and asked for a moratorium to allow the city to work on regulations on how and where such operations could be located, before they could be allowed to open.

When the state legalized recreational marijuana in 2016 it gave municipalities the choice of opting in to allow such businesses, or continuing to ban them.

(Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story had an error in the headline. The Augusta City Council did not vote on the cannabis proposal at the July 18 meeting; it held the first reading. It was an editing error.)

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