Planning Commission Recap: Marijuana Microbusiness Approved for Lowell City Mall

The Lowell Planning Commission met for approximately 40 minutes on Monday night for their regular January meeting. All commissioners were present for the session which was held virtually via the Zoom videoconferencing platform.

At the start of the meeting, the commission took care of some annual housekeeping. They returned Bruce Barker and Dave Cadwallader to the positions of chair and vice chair, respectively, as well as approved the meeting dates for the year and adopted the commission’s rules and procedures.

After that, the commission moved on to the main piece of business on the agenda: an application by River City Cannabis to establish an adult use marijuana microbusiness in the Lowell City Mall, which located behind Arby’s on W. Main Street.

The Planning Commission had tabled the application at its December meeting and asked the applicant to provide additional information about how air would be purified to ensure odors don’t permeate into neighboring businesses.

Marijuana microbusinesses are allowed to grow up to 150 plants and then process them for sale onsite. Applicant Michael Mathews says all plants at River City Cannabis will be grown inside a tent, and he provided information on four step approach that will be used for odor management. This includes creating negative air pressure in the grow space, using carbon filtration for air flow, using an ozonator after filtration and dispersing the product ONA Gel Pro into the ductwork as a final safeguard against odors escaping the building.

The Planning Commission appeared satisfied by that information and voted unanimously to approve the adult use marijuana and special land use applications for River City Cannabis.

At the conclusion of the meeting, commissioners were told another adult use marijuana busines application might be on the agenda for February.

The next regular meeting of the Lowell Planning Commission will be on Monday, February 8, 2021 at 7pm.