HAVERHILL — Despite opposition from neighbors, the city’s fourth retail cannabis shop is poised to open at 330 Amesbury Road, the site of the former Seafood Etc. restaurant.
The state’s Cannabis Control Commission approved a final retail license for Mellow Fellows, doing business as Mello, at a public meeting on Oct. 14. However, the commission must conduct a final inspection before Mello can commence adult-use operations or sell adult-use cannabis to consumers.
The license was granted to a trio of Haverhill men who had touted their residency when requesting a special permit from the city. However, a change of ownership filing this past spring shows that 91% of the business is now owned by a Wellesley investment firm.
According to CCC documents, an initial application for a license, dated October 2020, listed owner/partners in the business as Edward Brown, Timothy Riley and Charles Emery, all of Haverhill.
Prior to a community outreach meeting held in April of 2019, local attorney Paul Magliocchetti, who represented Brown, Riley and Emery, told The Eagle-Tribune that Mellow Fellows was “exactly the type of business that a community like Haverhill should want.”
“(They’re) three Haverhill guys born and raised in the city,” he said. “They live here. Their parents, their grandparents lived here. Their children grew up here. They care about the city. They’re going to do this the right way.”
A change of ownership filed in May of this year with the CCC lists two people as now having direct or indirect control over the business: Arthur Becker and Alan Kanders, who are listed as managers of Mass Invest Group LLC., which the application says has 91% ownership in Mello.
Riley and Emery are relatives and business associates of City Councilor Michael McGonagle, who in January sold the former Seafood Etc. building for $1.35 million to Mass Prop Invest LLC in Wellesley, according to a real estate transaction recorded by the Salem Registry of Deeds.
McGonagle and his sister Kathy Darby, as MAC & D Realty, had purchased the building from the Biggart family in March 2019 for a price of $605,000 then began leasing the property to the Mellow Fellows group before selling it.
Meaka Brown, general manager of Mello, said she will not have an opening date until Mello receives its final inspection from the CCC.
According to a CCC spokesperson, Commission staff must confirm that conditions placed on the final license have been met and that Mello employees and others associated with the business are successfully registered and have badges issued by the Commission. Only then will the Commission issue a formal notice to begin full operations.
Once Mello receives the Commission’s notice, the shop will be authorized to open for adult-use operations starting after a minimum of three calendar days, although the operators may wish to take more than three days to open. The timing is meant to allow cannabis retailers to coordinate their opening day logistics with the city, law enforcement, colleagues, and other essential stakeholders before sales begin.
During two community outreach meetings in 2019, where details of the project were explained, neighbors expressed concern and worry about how their residential neighborhood might be disrupted by crime and more importantly, a possible increase in traffic along the already busy Amesbury Road (Route 110). The area where Mello is located is across from Interstate 495 on and off ramps and close to the Elliot Street entrance to Northern Essex Community College.
The city currently has three operating cannabis retail shops — Stem on Washington Street, CNA Stores on River Street and Full Harvest Moonz on Plaistow Road. Mello will make four, although the city is still mandated by the state to allow for a total of six retail cannabis shops, city officials said.
No additional applications have been filed or are in process at this time, city officials said.
At the Oct. 19 city council meeting, the lawyer for Andre Colon of True House Cannabis LLC submitted a letter to the council requesting the withdrawal of a pending zoning change request to allow for a large cannabis cultivation center at 25 Bond St. in the Ward Hill Business Park.
City Councilor William Macek said that since the request for a zoning change received an unfavorable recommendation from the planning board and planning director, he asked the council to allow for the withdrawal, “with prejudice,” which the council approved.
“It meant the application can never be refiled,” Macek said. “The city already has numerous zoning areas where cannabis cultivation or processing can take place. We don’t need to enlarge the zoning that is already established.”
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