KITTERY, Maine — The Board of Appeals unanimously accepted applications for two special exceptions to allow a major home application to allow a marijuana caregiver operation and establish a residence in a commercial zone during a hearing Tuesday night.
Applicant Pam Edwards proposed constructing a four-bedroom residence on the second floor and part of the first floor of the commercial building at 99 State Road and providing marijuana caregiver services with her partner, Jan Edwards.
The Kittery Discount Smokeshop, owned by another entity the two are a part of, would move to another suite in the building.
Pam Edwards said the massage parlor, tattoo shop and home improvement store would remain in the facility.
“This area of the (Business Local) zone doesn’t share the benefit of the meandering pedestrian window shopper. Because of the distance between retailers we are an intended destination for vehicular traffic. There’s not going to be any signage that says ‘medical marijuana here,’” Edwards said. “For security plans we’re going to put in (silent) alarms that go directly to the police station.”
The board set conditions of approval including signage on the interior doors clearly denoting the caregiver space in the residence’s living room on the first floor and the smoke shop, the code enforcement officer certifying the operation is not creating an odor problem.
The board said the medicinal marijuana home occupation could not take up more than 50 percent of the residence, in which case it would no longer be an accessory use for the residence.
“Given the amount of space they are devoting to this, in my mind it’s sort of on the line as to whether its accessory or not because it’s sort of approaching a third to 50 percent of the space and I would think anything over 50 percent is no longer accessory to the use,” board member April Timko said. “I would be concerned if it got any bigger that we’re no longer looking at an accessory use. Certainly we don’t want to have lots of people doing major home occupations of all types where it’s in name only and it’s really not incidental use.”
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