Bourne Select Board Meeting - Marijuana License Scoring and HCA Vote - September 10, 2025
Bourne Select Board Meeting - Marijuana License Scoring and Host Community Agreement Vote - September 10, 2025
Note: The meeting transcript states the meeting was called to order on September 11, 2025, but the provided timestamp indicates September 10, 2025. This summary uses the provided timestamp date.
The Bourne Select Board met to deliberate on the scoring of four applicants for a marijuana retail license and to decide whether to enter into a Host Community Agreement (HCA) negotiations. The board reviewed presentations and applications from Bourne Cannabis, NLM (operating as Kodot Dispensary), Cape Cod Dispensary, Medicine Man, and Canal Retail. After extensive discussion of scoring criteria, location, social equity, and business plans, the board voted 3-2 to enter into HCA negotiations with Bourne Cannabis. The board also provided narratives summarizing reasons for their selections and non-selections.
Discussion Items
- Deliberation on Applicant Scores: Each board member explained their scoring rationale.
- MJ scored Bourne Cannabis highest, citing a strong management team, including a social equity member, detailed compliance metrics, employee benefits, and a well-documented timeline.
- Gene also ranked Bourne Cannabis highest, emphasizing strong diversion prevention, energy/environmental metrics, local involvement, and labor/employment opportunities.
- Peter scored NLM (Kodot Dispensary) highest, noting a solid business plan, extensive retail experience, and a favorable location on MacArthur Boulevard. He expressed concern about having two shops on that strip and noted Bourne Cannabis’s location near a residential area.
- Anne Marie scored Cape Cod Dispensary highest, favoring its location in Buzzards Bay, the experience of the Perkins and McCarthy families, realistic financial plans, and community contributions. She also noted that Bourne Cannabis’s social equity component was less integral.
- Melissa scored Cape Cod Dispensary highest, citing the location’s ability to serve Buzzards Bay residents and bridge traffic, and the team’s extensive shadowing experience.
- Location Debate: Multiple board members discussed the overlay district and the suitability of different locations. Some argued that Bourne Cannabis’s MacArthur Boulevard location would duplicate services, while others felt a Buzzards Bay location was underserved. Concerns were raised about traffic and access in residential areas for Medicine Man’s proposed location.
- Social Equity Considerations: MJ noted that Bourne Cannabis had a strong social equity member integrated into operations, while Cape Cod Dispensary’s social equity component was less detailed. Anne Marie countered that Cape Cod Dispensary’s social equity candidate (Chris Vining) was an advocate but not as integral.
- Letter from Attorney Valerio Romano: The board discussed a letter from an attorney representing a candidate questioning the scoring process. MJ and Peter stated the letter was an opinion and not material because removing those scores did not change the composite outcome. The board agreed not to address it further.
- Process for Decision: The board debated whether to vote immediately or take more time. They decided to proceed with a vote after each member stated their top choice. MJ and Gene moved to enter into HCA negotiations with Bourne Cannabis; the motion carried 3-2.
Key Outcomes
- Vote to Enter into Host Community Agreement Negotiations with Bourne Cannabis: The motion passed 3-2 (MJ, Peter, Gene in favor; Anne Marie, Melissa against).
- Provision of Narratives: The board provided oral narratives for each applicant as required by the process:
- For Bourne Cannabis (selected): strengths included strong diversion prevention, energy/environmental metrics, local involvement, employment benefits, ESOP model, thorough business plan, and strong social equity integration. Weaknesses from dissenting members included location concerns (traffic, residential access) and a vague hiring plan.
- For Cape Cod Dispensary (not selected): weaknesses included less detailed diversion prevention, energy/environmental, and consumer education metrics; reliance on CCC guidelines; social equity applicant not fully integrated; location access concerns; and compliance metric not separately addressed.
- For Medicine Man: weaker consumer education, timeline, labor/employment benefits, compliance, and over-reliance on CCC regulations.
- For Canal Retail: no location, speculation on timeline, weaker presentation with little detail.
- Next Steps: The board will draft a formal narrative for review at the next meeting. The selected applicant (Bourne Cannabis) will proceed to negotiate a Host Community Agreement.
Meeting Transcript
No, or a parent one that is now fixed. So I will call this meeting to order September 11th, 2025. Note this meeting is being televised, streamed, or recorded by Bourne TV. If anyone in the audience is recording or videotaping, they uh need to acknowledge such at this time. We have Owen here from the Bourne Enterprise. Please refrain from using flash photography. The Zoom meeting ID is 876-3388-5678. Password 8CA all caps. The Zoom chat will not be monitored. Participants who wish to speak must raise the hand icon until the chair asks them to unmute. All items within this meeting agenda are subject to deliberations and votes. And I one second, Peter. I do want to, I know it's not on here, but I would like to just take a quick moment for of silence. It is September 11th, and I think it's important that we do that. That's what I was gonna say. That's what I was going to do. And I guess we will pledge allegiance as well while we're doing that. And for our safety purposes as well. Thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you. Okay. Oh, we are back. So it's uh discussion and deliberation on the scores for the marijuana applicants in issuance of a potential host community agreement. Um so I don't know. I guess we'll start and we um I don't know where are we starting here? What is the pleasure? Do we want to go around to the select board, talk about your scoring or how you scored, or where do we where do we want to start? MJ, I see you're up on the screen. Do you do you want to lead us off while you're maybe get you done quicker? Yeah, your hand is up. I like it. Okay. You need to unmute though. Oh the yeah, okay. Um yeah, sorry, I'm not feeling written because you don't want what I have. So um, yeah, I um um my scoring, I I thought that all the applicants were um qualified to um be um uh chosen. I thought the presentations were very good. Um I obviously they're caring people who really um care about the industry. I um I did um uh in my reading um uh rate um uh foreign cannabis um as the higher highest rated applicant. Uh I I thought they were um uh strong well-rounded management team with good experience, uh funding um that includes social a social equity member who is really integral to the operation. Um I thought uh um Michael Um had a expressed himself really well in terms of his his operation and his values, and I thought that the management team did a really good job of bringing someone who really added value to the organization. Um I thought they answered um in every category. Their answers were very complete and well documented. Um I thought that um I thought that their explanation of the location in terms of being able to tap into the family market and drive through people, and that their you know, online order experiences is a major part. Um their um operation was good. I thought their timeline was detailed with the plan. Um their compliance metric was detailed on uh labor and employment metric. Um they were strong on employee pay on benefits, uh consideration of housing in the ESOPs handbook was very detailed on the recruitment and uh employee handbook, and um I thought they met the social equity. And I thought they met the social equity.
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