Years after Maine voters approved adult recreational use of marijuana, residents of Hancock County’s largest municipality will get to influence whether the city should allow local retail pot stores.
Ellsworth voters will be asked in a November referendum if they generally support allowing retail recreational marijuana stores in the city. The outcome is expected to determine, for at least the near future, whether the city will develop regulations allowing such shops and related marijuana businesses.
More than 200 recreational-use marijuana stores throughout Maine have been granted or are in the process of getting state licenses, but municipalities in Hancock County have been slow to allow retail shops and other marijuana businesses. The only adult-use retail marijuana shop currently operating in Hancock County is Meristem in Southwest Harbor, which opened in 2021.
Bar Harbor voters rejected a proposal in 2022 to allow recreational shops to open there. Officials in Ellsworth, which has had a complete turnover on its elected city council in the past three years, held a workshop on the topic in September 2021 but then dropped the idea.
The city’s current councilors, all of whom were first elected after October 2021, decided earlier this summer to revisit the topic.
Ellsworth councilors this week said they plan to start by asking voters if they favor allowing adult-use retail marijuana shops in the city. If voters show strong support for the concept, the council also might consider allowing cultivation, product manufacturing and testing for the recreational market.
“Focusing on the retail side makes a lot of sense,” Councilor Patrick Lyons said. “It simplifies it.”
The city charter allows the council to enact ordinances on its own, without voter approval, but the council wants to poll voters on the general idea of allowing recreational pot shops before spending time on the effort. City officials say any local restrictions would include limiting how many such shops would be permitted, and where in Ellsworth they would be allowed to operate.
“I like the idea of a referendum to allow the citizens of Ellsworth to speak,” said Councilor Steve O’Halloran. “It’s something we haven’t done a lot of since I’ve been [on the council].”
The recreational marijuana market is also expected to expand elsewhere in Hancock County. Bucksport, where voters have consented to commercial marijuana operations, has approved an application for an adult-use store on Route 1, but it has yet to open for business, according to Luke Chiavelli, the town’s code enforcement officer.
Ellsworth already has retail shops dedicated solely to the medical marijuana market. Curaleaf, a medical marijuana dispensary on Myrick Street, sells cannabis products to prescribed medical users, while Main Street Medical downtown sells to licensed caregivers. A third business that operates strictly as a home-based site for medical caregiver cultivation and sales is located on Bangor Road.
Ellsworth also could adopt rules to allow more medical marijuana businesses to operate in the city, officials said.
All the existing marijuana businesses are grandfathered under a previous state regulation that allowed them to open in Ellsworth, and would not lose that status if the city decides not to develop local regulations for the industry, city officials said.
