Angry zoning board approves downtown marijuana shop just steps from existing shop and proposed one

The Zoning Board of Appeal today approved a proposed marijuana shop at 21 Broad St. downtown, but members weren't happy about it.

The proposed Rasta Rootz at 21 Milk St. would be just 222 feet from Tito Jackson's proposed Verdant Restorative shop on State Street and just 888 feet from the existing Patriot Care shop on Milk Street, which only a few days ago added recreational marijuana to the medicinal products it had been selling.

At issue for increasingly frustrated board members is a city requirement that marijuana facilities be at least a half mile apart, a requirement that the mayor's office started ignoring a couple years ago and which other city officials, including the Boston Cannabis Board, routinely ignore as well.

Board member Mark Erlich said the board is stuck in "an impossible situation" of "shifting sands" when it comes to marijuana zoning and he's so sick of it, he abstained on the Rasta Rootz proposal. Member Jeanne Pinado went further and voted to reject the proposal. The other five members, however, voted in favor, so Rasta Rootz now goes to the state Cannabis Control Commission for the last approval it needs to open.

Earlier in the day, the board approved a marijuana bakery proposal in Roslindale Square less than half a mile from a potential competitor.

Board Chairwoman Chrstine Araujo voted for the proposed four-floor Broad Street shop, but said she completely agreed with Erlich.

"We tend to be the whipping boys, or the whipping people, for these shifting sands, where we just end up being targeted, because, really, the buck stops with us." She continued, though, that when it comes to distancing between cannabis shops, "nothing is clear, nothing is satisfactory."

She said it might make perfect sense for a dense area like downtown to have several marijuana shops near each other in a way that it wouldn't work in outlying neighborhood business districts, but the current zoning code makes no distinction, and the board gets conflicting messages from the mayor's office, the city council and now the city cannabis board. "Honestly, we're caught in the middle," she said.

Last week, City Councilor Lydia Edwards (East Boston, North End, Charlestown) proposed eliminating the zoning board from marijuana considerations, saying the board had failed completely and that the cannabis board would be better suited to judge proponents on a series of issues, including ones not having to deal with zoning, such as diversity. Part of her proposal also calls for making applicants prove to the cannabis board what special hardship makes them need to locate within a half mile of another marijuana concern.

The property manager of the neighboring 75 State Street office tower and Ari Gil, owner of the Ari Boston men's clothing shop on Broad Street, both opposed the proposal.

Araujo cut off the property manager when it appeared he would be arguing against the idea of marijuana sales completely, so he didn't really get to explain why he and his tenants don't want a pot shop next door.

Gill said he is worried about loitering on the street and in a small courtyard he shares with the proposed site. He said he and his workers already have to deal with "dozens of people" coming in and asking for directions and said he's concerned he'd start getting even more of that once the marijuana market opens.