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Cleveland Circle building owner sues to block neighboring pot shop; raises specter of high-school kids becoming potheads, of out-of-town buyers clogging roads and getting into crashes

The Hamilton Co., which owns the office building at 392-398 Chestnut Hill Ave. in Cleveland Circle, today sued to try to block plans by an Ipswich concern to turn the former Dunkin' Donuts on Beacon Street into a marijuana dispensary.

In its lawsuit, filed in Suffolk Superior Court against both dispensary operator Happy Valley and the Boston Zoning Board of Appeal, which approved the proposal on Sept. 12, Hamilton Kevinized its arguments against the proposal, charging it would become an ID-ignoring pot haven for the thousands of high-school and college students who already swarm the area in a Cleveland Circle that would quickly become gridlocked by hordes of pot buyers "from outside the neighborhood" all apparently driving in instead of using any of the nearby Green Line stops and all creating further havoc by getting into car crashes.

The proposed location is across Beacon Street from a full-service liquor store.

The lawsuit also asks the court to "annul" the zoning approval because the proposed location would violate Boston's frequently ignored half-mile buffer between marijuana establishments, since Happy Valley earlier won approval to turn the one-time Mary Ann's next to the Dunkin' Donuts into a dispensary. At the hearing on its Dunkin' proposal, Happy Valley said it would abandon that site in favor of Dunkin' Donuts because the neighborhood expressed concern about the complete lack of parking at Mary Ann's while the Dunkin' site has a dozen parking spaces.

Hamilton, which has opposed the Dunk's proposal from the start, along with Boston College, also said it is concerned about the impact of marijuana for sale on patients going for treatment at two of its tenants: Boston Evening Therapy Associates, which provides cognitive and behavioral therapy sessions, and the National Tay-Sachs and Allied Diseases Association, which conducts research towards cures for the inherited, fatal nerve ailment.

The practices at the Hamilton Property involve delicate operations and the patients tend to be already nervous when they visit.

Their nerves would only be further frazzled when they find Hamilton's parking spaces filled with Happy Valley customers, the landlord charges.

Among those who spoke in favor of the proposal at the zoning hearing, at which the board gave the project a conditional-use permit for the sale of marijuana and a variance for being closer than a half mile to the shop it says it won't open: State Rep. Michael Moran, who said a heavily regulated dispensary would be far preferable to the old Mary Ann's or the Dunkin' Donuts - in a neighborhood that had had problems with Mary Ann's in particular for decades, and which he said had voted 90% in favor of legalized marijuana.

The Brighton Allston Improvement Association also supported a pot shop at the old Dunk's, saying its parking spaces would get both customers and delivery vehicles off the street, unlike at the Mary Ann's site.

The proposed shop, which was also approved by the Boston Cannabis Board, needs approval of the state Cannabis Control Commission. It would be Happy Valley's second Boston shop - it currently runs a dispensary in East Boston.

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Comments

Anybody who raises concerns about the road safety risks posed by those who drive around while impaired, is such a narc!

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The idea that this particular location, in an area where weed and alcohol are commonly available, will somehow produce outsized numbers of such events is the ridiculous part.

Oh, and you forgot to mention playing the piano faster and faster and FASTER!

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I know, how dare River Side Liquors sell 200ml bottles.

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.

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I'm 100 percent in agreement that Marijuana has temporary healing benefits like any drug or drink with whatever relief you are seeking. I'm 100 percent in agreement that based
on looking around the areas where pot shops have opened I don't see any significant improvement. Puff puff give

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But then I read this:

Hamilton, which has opposed the Dunk's proposal from the start, along with Boston College, also said it is concerned about the impact of marijuana for sale on patients going for treatment at two of its tenants:

Every Bostonian deserves to have a landlord who cares as much about their tenants as Hamilton does about theirs. Such nice people!

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Woke up my husband actually laughing out loud at this one.

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Shame they weren't as concerned about -- or even willing to acknowledge -- the bedbugs infesting one of their Packard's Corner buildings in 2003 and again in 2006.

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Hamilton Kevinized its arguments against the proposal, charging it would become an ID-ignoring pot haven for the thousands of high-school and college students who already swarm the area in a Cleveland Circle that would quickly become gridlocked by hordes of pot buyers "from outside the neighborhood" all apparently driving...

That happened during the time when the first dispensary opened in Brookline. It was the only one so of course there were crowds of people and traffic. Since these places have started sprouting up everywhere the traffic and crowd impact has diminished significantly. When the last time anyone has read about a traffic jam at a pot dispensary?

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Whole Foods on the other hand still has one all the time,

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If they opened another Whole Foods a couple blocks away, it would get worse.

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Also ID-ignoring definitely did NOT happen

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I get IDed 100% of the time at the local weed store. I also literally have a long white beard. According to the mirror, if I'm 21, I've had a very hard life indeed.

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There was the time Ikea added the dispensary to their store near Route 24.
Revenue went up 300% in the dining room there, too.

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...the meatballs.

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sponsored by Sheldon Adelson. Do casino operators oppose pot shops because they siphon off vice dollars that could be wasted on gambling?

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Oddly enough it seems to have nothing to do with Gambling, Iran, Israel or Trump, but rather is a personal vendetta.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheldon_Adelson#Cannabis

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Wouldn't have been a junkie if his dad had maybe paid more attention to him instead of to his businesses?

It's good when people like Sheldon Adelson die. It's even better that he doesn't have this son around to repeat his behavior. I hope his other four kids aren't odious schmucks.

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I wonder what their real motivations are. I'd bet money they don't have anything to do with why this company told the court they were concerned.

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Probably just good old fashioned "I hate weed" old people mindset.

Their arguments using their tenants' patients isn't even good given that 1. people in therapy have agency and would probably go to a different dispensary if they wanted weed and 2. if a person is driving into Boston they are most likely already expecting difficulty with parking.

I, for one, welcome any addition to Cleveland Circle. It's been a bit boring for a while, and has the potential to be a wonderful little neighborhood destination if developed right.

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HAMILTON: "This proposed weed store is too close to other weed stores."

ALSO HAMILTON: "People will crowd in from miles around to shop at this weed store."

It's almost like they don't really have an argument so they're throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks.

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Life sciences and self-medicating. I long for the good old days when everything was a CVS or a bank.

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Oh no, I hope out-of-town people don't come shatter the tranquility of the quiet little hamlet of Cleveland Circle!

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Putting a pot shop at the old Dunk's might make the perfectly normal and sedate traffic and parking situation in Cleveland Circle into a total nightmare!

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Weed is a public nuisance when smoked. Allow more retail locations to open selling edible products that cannot be smoked.

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Let people eat it, drink it, bathe in it, I don't care. Legalizing bud was insanely stupid.

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Legalizing bud was insanely stupid.

Why?

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I’d make the plaintiff stand outside a similar pot shop and track traffic and juvenile delinquents. Without solid evidence of problems at that similar site, they could not introduce those fears in my case.

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I have a few choice words for The Hamilton Companies: Neglectful. Rapacious. Indifferent. Rude. Unresponsive.

Their so-called “property management” takes as input people new to Boston, converts their rent money into profit, and allows their buildings to fall into disrepair. These tenants turn over as quickly as they can, but, Boston being Boston, there’s always a fresh crop of newbies to be preyed upon.

There aren’t many large-scale residential leasing companies that are decent, but T.H.C. [see what I did there?] stands out as massive drain on our collective quality of life in this city.

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