Sean C. Morgan
The Sweet Home Planning Commission on July 30 approved a conditional use permit for a fourth retail marijuana outlet in town following a public hearing.
Voting to approve the permit during the commission’s regular monthly meeting were Thomas Herb, Henry Wolthuis, Greg Stephens, Eva Jurney and Edie Wilcox. Lance Gatchell was absent.
The conditional use permit is the fourth approved by the Planning Commission. Going Green, previously a medical dispensary, began selling recreational marijuana late last year. Modern Forest and La Mota have received conditional use permits but have yet to open.
As a condition of approval, the Planning Condition required that no marijuana odor is permitted to leave the subject property.
Applicant Leah Alicata, a managing partner of 17 Farms, plans to open the business at 550 Main St., the location of Ames Creek Realty, LLC. The building is 1,964 square feet, with 11 parking spaces. The property meets distance requirements of more than 1,000 feet from schools and more than 100 feet from residential properties. The business, 17 Farms, lists a Simi Valley, Calif., street address with an additional address in Aloha.
Ames Creek Realty owner Kitsey Trewin said that she will relocate her business following the sale of the property.
Alicata said 17 Farms will finalize the purchase of the property when the Oregon Liquor Control Commission licenses the facility.
Alicata said the new business will open after the licensing process is complete, which could take a maximum of nine months.
Once the store opens, its hours will be 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week, Alicata said.
“Though the management will be brought in, we are excited to offer new jobs to the locals of Sweet Home as well.”
She said 17 Farms currently operates a production facility in Beaverton and plans to expand further. The Sweet Home retail facility will sell a wide range of generic and branded CBD products and recreational marijuana and derivatives, including beauty products, cosmetics, postcards, THC-infused convenience foods and other related products.
“We strive to offer access to superior-quality cannabis, cannabis accessories and cutting-edge information about cannabis, hemp and political activism,” Alicata said. “We are committed to informing the public about the need for cannabis as well as defending the civil liberties and freedom of cannabis consumers, growers and providers by campaigning to end unjust criminalization and persecution. Our vision is to take marijuana into the market and follow the trends along with creating avenues to continue talks about export and the furtherment of the product as a whole.”
Alicata intends to maintain a “vanilla” appearance, Alicata told the Planning Commission. She wants the store to be a place where people are not embarrassed to park.
The building can use some improvement, she said. It can be “freshened up,” but she isn’t planning a major renovation.
“It can be dignified,” Alicata said. “It doesn’t have to be what everyone thinks it is.”
Alicata said 17 Farms had considered starting in California and expanding into Oregon, but Oregon is ahead of California in terms of developing its regulations.
She said 17 Farms believes Sweet Home “embodies what the Pacific Northwest is” and represents middle-class America,
“I think there’s a market.”
As part of the application, Alicata listed the organization’s strengths and weaknesses. Among strengths, she said the business would offer a diverse range of additional items and customer service-based culture.
Taxes will benefit the community, and the company’s desire to participate in public service should reinforce 17 Farm’s desire to aid the development of Sweet Home in the coming years, Alicata said.
Among weaknesses, she said, the company is new to the community, she said; and “we have also considered the moderate views some have expressed and realize that we may have to inform the public of the benefits of encouraging new revenue to the area, in all forms.”
The city received one anonymous letter in opposition to the proposal from a person who claimed to be a business owner concerned about repercussions from voicing his or her opinion. The writer worried that some people do not accept the opinions of others.
The writer reported seeing the great effects of CBD oil with the writer’s father-in-law, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease, and the writer knows other customers who have been helped by using marijuana.
“We also have seen the downside of allowing this drug to become legal in our state,” the writer said. “We see numerous customers a day that are flying high and do not care, teenagers as well as adults. There is an ongoing problem in this country with alcohol, prescriptions and drugs. I am not sure what vision the City of Sweet Homes, but if having marijuana shops all over town is it, then that is what we will become. This town already has a good amount of homelessness, crime and drugs, so why not bring more of the above in? Pot shops are now mainstream, so seeing them on Main Street in every town is now the norm.
“Like I stated earlier, I do not know what the laws are. If you want my opinion, then I do not want another pot shop in town. I do not want another pot shop on Main Street,” the writer concluded.
“The position of the staff is that the threshold question pertaining to whether a marijuana shop may be permitted generally has been answered by the City Council by the adoption of standards that permit the use through a conditional use application process,” according to findings included in the staff report to the Planning Commission.
“The purpose of this application is not to weigh in on whether marijuana should or should not be allowed.
“The focus of this application is on whether there are specific negative impacts associated with the applicant’s particular proposed business location and plan that may need to be mitigated by applying conditions of approval.”
In other business, the Planning Commission:
n Approved a conditional use for a home occupation for Brittany Henshaw at 501 7th Ave. She plans to operate the business from an office there, but the location will not be open to customers. She will meet customers at other locations.
n Approved the partition of 1280 44th Ave. with a variance for one of the new properties from lot width, from 25 feet to 20 feet, and frontage requirements, from 80 feet to 61.5 feet. The new properties will be 12,024 square feet and 8,302 square feet. They will be developed as single-family residences.
The applicant was Peter Seaders, an engineer representing the owner, Spies Real Estate Group, LLC., of Corvallis.