Great Barrington Under Fire In New Cannabis Lawsuit


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Great Barrington Under Fire In New Cannabis Lawsuit
Great Barrington Under Fire In New Cannabis Lawsuit

Calyx Berkshire is the latest cannabis business to file a lawsuit against the town of Great Barrington, claiming Great Barrington’s collection of impact fees from the company violated its agreement with the town and state law. Photo by Leslee Bassman.

Great Barrington — On the heels of lawsuits recently filed by Great Barrington dispensaries Theory Wellness, Community Growth Partners (Rebelle), and Farnsworth Fine Cannabis, town officials are forced to combat another attack by cannabis dispensary, D2N2 LLC (dba Calyx Berkshire), after the business filed a complaint on March 4 in Berkshire Superior Court, naming the town and Selectboard Chair Stephen Bannon as defendants.

As with the previous lawsuits, Calyx, 307 Main Street, focuses on its Host Community Agreement (HCA) with the town, alleging that the agreement’s requirement that the cannabis dispensary pay three percent of its gross sales to Great Barrington coffers is improper. According to the Calyx complaint, town officials were required to produce documentation to support fees that were accrued for municipal services reasonably related to efforts “to counter any negative impacts Calyx Berkshire has caused” as a result of operating in Great Barrington, a Calyx news release stated. Citing owner Donna Norman, the release calls the fees imposed without this documentation as “unjustified” and “hurting smaller businesses.”

“This is our money, and we need to create jobs and grow as a business, but instead we have been forced to write checks for services not even rendered—because we have zero impact,” Norman stated in the release. A resident of Great Barrington for 24 years, she stated that her attempts to discuss the issue with town officials through emails and meeting requests have been ignored or canceled.

An HCA dictates the responsibilities owed between a cannabis business and its host town, with provisions that may include the same fees imposed on other non-cannabis businesses operating in the town as well as a community impact fee applicable to cannabis businesses for negative impacts its operations cause the town, with the town to provide an invoice of those claimed impact fees to the facility.

Specifically, Calyx alleges that, pursuant to its HCA with Great Barrington, it paid more than $392,000 in impact fees to the town since its 2020 licensure but hasn’t received any proof of the town’s costs related to any negative impacts that may have been caused by the cannabis business operations in the community, even when Calyx representatives asked the town for this documentation. Those costs used to mitigate the negative impacts from the business must be documented, the complaint alleges. Instead, the filing states, the town represented that it incurred no negative impact mitigation costs as a result of Calyx conducting business in its borders.

Claiming a violation of its contract with Great Barrington, the filing asks for a full refund of these fees, a declaration from the Court that Great Barrington can’t charge the company with impact fees unless it shows proof of a negative impact, and the town of Great Barrington be enjoined, or stopped, from spending any of the fees it collected from Calyx until it shows proof of a negative impact.

Bannon is named as a defendant in the action since he executed the HCA with Calyx on behalf of the town, the document states.

A copy of the lawsuit can be found Calyx v. Great Barrington Complaint.

In response to a request for comment from The Berkshire Edge, Town Manager Mark Pruhenski said, “unfortunately, the town can’t comment on the pending litigation.”

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