A controversial year-old amendment to Caribou’s ordinance regulating its cannabis industry has been voided as the result of a legal challenge filed by a sitting city councilor and a former council candidate.
The council made changes to the ordinance without the proper review by its planning board, and did not adequately provide public notice of the hearing at which it approved the amendment, the court found.
The amendment, adopted last July, had rezoned where medical dispensaries could be located in the city and removed a requirement for dispensaries to be nonprofits. The city council pushed through the changes to aid a business that had been partially shut down because of a state law change, but violated both state law and the city’s charter in doing so, Aroostook Superior Court Justice Stephen Nelson wrote in his Aug. 7 judgement.
“The procedural failures represent a fatal flaw in the process and renders the purported approval and enactment of the amended Ordinance void,” Nelson wrote. “Any permits, licenses, actions or uses based on said Amendment are also void.”
It’s unclear if or how the judgment will affect Caribou’s marijuana businesses.
The city is “working with legal counsel to understand the implications,” City Manager Penny Thompson said in a statement. Through July, Caribou racked up $26,750 in legal fees fighting the review, according to an invoice obtained by the Bangor Daily News through a Freedom of Access Act request.
A series of amended ordinances intended to make most of the same changes voided by the court — this time following correct municipal legislative procedure — are set for public hearings later this month.
City Councilor Dan Bagley, who brought the legal challenge, said he was “pleased” with the court’s decision, and that it protects citizens from government overreach and misconduct.
“The Superior Court’s ruling sends a strong message to Caribou, and all communities across Maine, that the power vested in our City or Town Councils is not absolute — they can’t just do whatever they want,” Bagley said.
Bagley and former council candidate Benjamin Tucker filed the challenge last August through Rule 80b of the Maine Rules of Civil Procedure, which allows for judicial review of local governmental actions.
“The decisions and actions of the City Council were arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable, and constitute abuses of discretion,” their complaint read.
The pair appealed to the court after a Bagley-led vote to rescind the amendment failed in an previous council meeting. The ordinance change incensed the planning board, who argued the city council had usurped its power. Planning board chair Amanda Jandreau resigned three days after the amendment’s initial approval, citing the council’s decision.
The court awarded Bagley and Tucker $189.54 for filing fees and other costs.
Both Bagley and Tucker have argued that the case was rooted in that lack of procedure, and not an attack on cannabis business in Caribou.
“For me, this case was not about supporting or opposing a medical marijuana business,” Tucker said. “It was about a City Council disregarding the legal process and its own established procedures in order to provide favorable treatment to one local business, and the precedent that sets.”
Caribou has strict rules surrounding marijuana sales. It does not allow recreational dispensaries or retail caregiver stores, and limits the number of medical dispensaries to two.
Richardson Remedies, an Aroostook County chain of marijuana businesses, had its Caribou location designated a retail caregiver store under a 2024 state law that replaced the legal definitions categorizing cannabis businesses, their employees and their products.
It previously operated under a caregiver license, which municipalities have no regulatory control over. In an effort to help Richardson Remedies remain in business, the council designated it as one of the two medical dispensaries allowed to operate in Caribou — even though it was not yet licensed as one.
Richardson Remedies is now a licensed medical dispensary, state records show. Dispensaries need local approval before they can be licensed by the state, but the ordinance changes that allowed Richardson to apply for the license are now void, potentially putting the business in a strange legal limbo.
Public hearings for new amendments to Caribou’s cannabis ordinance are set for the council’s Sept. 20 meeting.