SKOWHEGAN — The Planning Board is weighing whether to overturn the denial of plans for a medical cannabis grow house due to an apparent miscommunication with town officials.

The board on Tuesday heard the appeal of Winter Sweet LLC’s minor site plan review application for 667 Waterville Road, but members agreed to postpone a vote.

The town’s Staff Review Committee denied the application during a brief meeting Jan. 27, even though the project’s consultant says it has been operating for nearly a year.

Planning Board Chairman Steve Conley said members need time to work out the issues and make sure its decision on the appeal is correct. He noted it is unusual for someone to appeal a staff committee decision.

According to its findings of fact and conclusions of law, the staff committee’s only issues were that fire Chief Ryan Johnston had not approved fire protection plans and police Chief David Bucknam had not approved security and safety plans.

Johnston, who was at Tuesday’s meeting, said he has since worked with the project’s advisor, Albert Kang, to resolve his concerns. The chief, however, suggested Kang plan for future requirements under new national standards for grow houses.

“They’ve been great to work with,” Johnston said of Kang and his lawyer, Charles Ferris.

Bucknam was not at the meeting and did not provide any comments or ask any questions during the Staff Review Committee meeting.

Reached via telephone Wednesday , Bucknam said he could not comment because he had not seen the staff committee’s written decision and was unaware of the Planning Board’s discussion.

The written decision, dated Jan. 30 and signed by contracted Town Planner Turner Allen of the Kennebec Valley Council of Governments, indicates copies were sent to the municipal officials.

The Planning Board agreed to send Bucknam a letter, asking for clarification about his concerns before its next meeting March 3. Kang said he needs Planning Board approval as soon as possible so his tenants can renew their state medical cannabis cultivation licenses.

Current security systems include multiple surveillance cameras, motion detectors and locked doors to access the growing areas, Kang said. Such measures have been acceptable, Kang said, to law enforcement in other communities where he has advised clients operating medical cannabis grow houses.

“He’s gone far and above what you’d see in most grow operations already,” Ferris said. 

Kang said he was “flabbergasted and gobsmacked” by the staff committee’s denial because only Johnston provided negative feedback during the meeting.

Bucknam and Road Commissioner Jason Finley joined Johnston in voting against it. Bryan Belliveau, director of economic and community development, and formerly the code enforcement officer, voted in favor.

Winter Sweet’s application, filed in late October, lists conversion of two former kennel buildings for medical cannabis cultivation as well as construction of a new pad for a mobile home and installation of a new septic system.

The project on Waterville Road, also known as U.S. Route 201, triggered a minor site plan review because it exceeded 5,000 square feet and required a change in use, according to Code Enforcement Officer Aaron Crocker.

The property owner listed on the application is Yan Qiang Mei of Missouri City, Texas, who real estate records show purchased it in 2022. Kang said the property owner is his brother-in-law, who in turn has tenants running the marijuana grow.

Kang, who also has gone by the name Cheehaut Kang, runs a business with his wife advising clients on how to comply with state and local marijuana growing regulations, he explained in a lengthy interview with the Morning Sentinel in 2025.

Their business, he said then, was sparked as “mom and pop” marijuana growers of Chinese descent in Maine grew fearful amid a law enforcement crackdown on illegal grow houses that began in early 2024.

Authorities have said they believe the grows in Maine being investigated — which at one point federal prosecutors estimated numbered more than 200 — may be tied to Chinese organized crime. Meanwhile, the Office of Cannabis Policy confirmed in late 2024 that more than 120 previously illicit grows had entered the state’s licensed medical caregiver program.

Kang said he first approached the Skowhegan select board in 2024 regarding the Waterville Road property and was told medical cannabis growing facilities were prohibited in Skowhegan.

But Kang’s wife eventually met with Belliveau, who told her such facilities are permissible in certain locations. An ordinance adopted in 2016 allows facilities producing or distributing controlled substances — such as medical marijuana businesses and methadone clinics — only on U.S. routes 2 or 201 east of Route 150 and in the Northgate or Southgate industrial parks.

With that guidance, Kang believed he did not need anything further from the town.

The tenant at 667 Waterville Road then obtained medical cannabis licenses from the OCP to operate the grow in March or April 2025, Kang said. The state has authorized two registered caregivers to cultivate at the address, OCP spokesperson Alexis Soucy said via email.

The “can of worms” opened up, Kang said, when last summer he sought to install a mobile home where his tenants could live on site.

The mobile home was initially installed without a proper permit, Crocker said, and when he went to address that, he noticed the extent of the cannabis growing operation.

In late 2024, Kang told the Morning Sentinel the property was modified to accommodate a “multimillion-dollar manufacturing business” he ran with his brother-in-law, although he declined to specify what was being manufactured, citing a nondisclosure agreement. 

Kang said in 2024 the property was not being used to grow marijuana or for any illicit purpose.

At the time, the property was listed for sale. The original business plan fell through, but a client was interested in growing marijuana there instead, Kang said.

Staff Writer Dylan Tusinski contributed to this story.