By Jack Krampitz
BRISTOL – The Bristol City Council voted in special session Thursday night to amend a proposed city ordinance to allow the sale of recreational cannabis along with medical in a hybrid model for the city of Bristol. The first ordinance approved by the ordinance committee would have banned hybrid sales.
The 4-3 vote to allow hybrid sales came after a long night of public comment followed by an intense debate among the councilors themselves. The approved amendment also called for no more than two cannabis dispensaries to be be allowed in town.
Cheryl Thibeault, a member of the Ordinance Committee, proposed the amendment, which she said she believed would be for the benefit of many Bristol citizens, but especially the estimated 4,000 people who were already going to the Trulieve medical dipensary for numerous medical reasons.
“Patients who need life enhancing medications will suffer,” she said. “Imagine telling a woman suffering the effects of cancer and chemo that she now has to drive to New Britain or Hartford to have her prescription filled. I refuse to do that.”
“My goal primarily tonight is to preserve our medical dispensary, which I think we would lose if we did not go hybrid,” she continued. “I am not advocating for straight retail. I want to make that very clear.”
Thibeault also pointed out that in the near future, even if Bristol turned down the hybrid option, anyone in town would have the opportunity to purchase from an out-of-town dispensary and have it delivered to their door. So even as Bristol outlawed recreational sales, the product will still be arriving in our town.
With Thibeault’s remarks, the debate was on.
First up in opposition to the amendment was Councilperson Jacqueline Olsen. She stated what every opponent ultimately agreed with, that she does not oppose the use of cannabis for medical reasons. But she pointed out that the purpose of the ordinance was “to protect and preserve the public health, safety, and welfare of the citizens of Bristol.”
Olsen stated that she had witnessed first-hand the damage that drugs can cause. She knew friends and family that started with marijuana and ended up dying from overdoses of other drugs that marijuana had led to. She went on to list the harmful effects that cannabis can have on the body and mind. She cited evidence that Colorado had seen a dramatic increase in hospitalizations, ER visits, DUI’s, and fatal crashes since that state had legalized marijuana 10 years earlier.
Councilperson Sebastian Panioto was up next.
“Do we want to sell pot for people to get high?” he asked. “That’s the question that I think we have to answer.” His conclusion: “It’s disrespectful to the residents to try and railroad them and just bring in a hybrid location on Route 6. It’s not right.”
Panioto stated that the police department had spoken against the hybrid option and were right in that stance. He then tried to propose a motion to refer the revised ordinance to the Police Board for further review. That motion was ruled out of order because the original amendment had not yet been voted on.
Councilperson Sue Tyler, who chairs the Ordinance Committee, reminded her fellow councilors that they had all campaigned for office last year with promises of putting personal safety and security as a top priority. “We ran on having an open door to our constituents,” she said. “We ran on a platform that supported our police department. Now we are disregarding what the BPD has shared with us.”
Earlier in the meeting, Tyler expressed her resentment that Thibeault proposed her amendment before the council ever had a chance to debate the original ordinance proposal.
At this point in the debate, the vote appeared to be 3-1 against the amendment, and things were looking bleak for the hybrid proponents.
The next councilor to speak was Andrew Howe. He explained how he himself had several medical conditions including seizures and loss of sight in one eye, and at one time was taking upwards of 16 medications three times a day. Howe then decided to go the route of medical marijuana, so he sat down with the pharmacist at Trulieve and came up with a plan.
He said he now has dropped four medications and his seizures have stopped. Howe said that he realized he would be disappointing many people in the room, but he refuses to abandon the 4,000 people who rely on the product every day to alleviate their pain.
Councilperson Jolene Lusitani was next. She spoke of the ban on alcohol in the 1920s and how prohibition fell apart, and she could not rationalize the difference between the two. (Alcohol and cannabis)
Lusitani also mentioned that she believed the guardrails established in the amendment would protect Bristol from having a hybrid facility on every corner. And finally, she stated that as for all the evils predicted by opponents, ”it is our responsibility as parents and peers to educate our children on the effects of drugs and alcohol.” Her statement left the issue in a deadlock–three for the amendment; three against.
That only left Mayor Jeff Caggiano, who prefaced his comments with “Whether we allow hybrid retail places here or not, cannabis is here and it’s been here. We just had an Opioid Task Force meeting and education is the key.”
The mayor made several observations.
- First–All the medical marijuana dispensaries in Connecticut have actively applied for a hybrid license, so if Trulieve were to be denied a hybrid dispensary in Bristol and moved elsewhere, there would be no strictly medical dispensary to replace it.
- Second–He would not be willing to tell medical cannabis users they now have to travel 10 to 15 miles away to be helped.
- He stated that this council was elected because of a lack of liberty and choice, and he did not want to take that away from Bristol’s citizens.
- He also stated that education of our youth is key to prevention of drug use.
- Finally, he said that 100 percent of people agree that medical marijuana is valuable, and we don’t want to see that go.
When it came to the vote, the mayor was joined by councilpersons Thibeault, Howe and Lusitani in voting yes on the amendment.
The others–Tyler, Olsen, and Panioto remained firm no’s.
The amendment passed, 4-3.
During the passionate and at times testy debate, emotions spilled out into the audience, where several attendees exchanged expletives. The mayor called for order and the matter was defused as quickly as it arose.
Tyler, who was slightly combative throughout and agitated by the vote, made two other motions for amendments that would have made it impossible for Trulieve to locate at the old Applewood on Rt. 6, where it intends to house the hybrid dispensary/retail sales operation.
The first was to increase the distance from a school or church from 250 feet to 1,500 feet. The second was to include residential houses in the list of places the dispensary had to be separated from.
Both of Tyler’s amendments were voted down by the same 4-3 majority.
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