Pepperell Planning Board continues Uma Flowers marijuana dispensary hearing to September

PEPPERELL — August 31, 2020 — Pepperell Planning Board continues public hearing on Uma Flowers marijuana dispensary application. The board voted unanimously at its August 31 virtual meeting to continue the special permit hearing for Uma Flowers LLC — a women-owned adult-use marijuana retailer proposing a retail dispensary at 2 Tarbell Street — to its September 21 session, directing the applicant to submit supplemental materials by September 12. Attorney Valerio Romano, co-founders Priyanka and Tejal Patel, architect Andrew Kolar, site engineer Ian Ainsley, and traffic engineer Kim Hazabardian presented a plan to occupy approximately 2,931 square feet in an existing commercial building, with 45 on-site parking spaces and a 13-customer-per-15-minute appointment cap at opening. Unresolved questions included a potential proximity conflict with Boy Scout Troop 26 under the bylaw's 300-foot buffer rule, a same-day parking recalculation by town reviewer Bob Kelly that found 46 spaces required rather than 42, the absence of a snow storage plan and a maintenance manual, and insufficient lighting detail for a store open until 9 p.m. Town Administrator Andrew McLean separately disclosed that a formula error in Section 6640.5 of the marijuana bylaw limits the town to one retail permit — not two — despite working in good faith with two applicants for roughly a year, and asked the board to support a Special Town Meeting article in November to fix the cap at a fixed whole number.