Seekonk residents sound off on proposed pot-growing facility

January 31, 2019 12:17 am

SEEKONK, Mass. (WLNE) — Maine businessman Jamie Crumb hosted a public meeting Wednesday night, trying to win over skeptical Seekonk residents on his plan to bring a massive marijuana-growing facility to the old Showcase Cinemas.

“We went into the property and said wow, this would be such an easy conversion, from a building that is at this point vacant, but from my point of view was such a great place to start,” said Crumb.

He wants to lease and use the old theater to grow 50,000 square feet of pot, as well as process and sell the drug–both wholesale and retail–from the site.

Residents would have to approve a zoning change in order for that to happen, but, based on Wednesday night’s crowd, they may not be ready to do that, at least for this location.

“There’s half a mile down the road there’s a school, soccer field, baseball field, children there all the time, and you want us to rezone that?” said one resident.

Some are skeptical of Crumb’s claim of $6 million in annual tax revenue. Others are worried about even more congestion near residential neighborhoods.

“I live near that location as do a lot of people,” said Carrie Marcil. “It’s a busy street that already has a lot of retail, so we’re concerned about something coming in that could attract a lot more people and a lot more traffic.”

After the meeting, Crumb said he would consider not selling retail marijuana on site.

“After tonight it seems like there is some interest in having this as just strictly a cultivation and processing facility, not necessarily retail. So really we’re looking at our options here, and we’re going to see what the town thinks about it and go from there,” said Crumb.

Crumb assured residents that the noise from the facility would be minimal, and there would be no odor.

The zoning process for this proposed facility is totally separate from the one underway for a proposed apartment complex on the same property. Residents would have to take a vote specifically on whether they want to turn the Showcase Cinema property into a dedicated “marijuana overlay zone.”