'An absolute win-win for the city': Brockton marijuana cultivation business approved despite concerns

BROCKTON — A marijuana cultivation and manufacturing business, which hopes to make products for city retailers, is coming to a large industrial building as early as January.

Natural Agricultural Products, led by CEO Gary Leonard, the city's former Main Street manager, has received marijuana cultivator and products manufacturer licenses from the Brockton City Council.

The business will be located inside 53 Spark St., a 100,000-square-foot industrial building, and is expected to open about three to four months after the beginning of construction. Leonard is currently eyeing an opening date around the beginning of 2021.

"Their plan is to manufacture and cultivate in about 6,000 square feet initially," said attorney Scott Rubin, who is representing the business along with attorney Jake Creedon. "The cost for this build-out is upwards of $600,000. This is a very, very high, intense, expensive build-out for this type of production and manufacturing facility."

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Leonard's team, which includes co-owner Kathryn Redden and manager David Willette, has the ability to expand their operation to most of the building in the future.

"If this venture — which I think certainly Gary has every reason to believe will be successful — an additional 80-plus-thousand square feet would be available to them to expand within this facility," Rubin said. "This could be a project that could be anywhere from $3 to $4 million if successful."

The Brockton City Council on Monday night approved the licenses for Natural Agricultural Products, but not without some reservations from councilors.

Councilor-at-large Moises Rodrigues, who in the past has taken issue with the city council's process of granting marijuana licenses, calling it "flawed" and accusing his fellow councilors of racism, called Leonard's application incomplete.

Rodrigues had said he believes a valid host community agreement with the city is the most important approval a proposed marijuana business needs. Leonard received an agreement from former Mayor Bill Carpenter, but it expired in 2019 — a year after it was granted. Rubin is in the process of trying to renew the agreement with the city.

"We have individuals that are further along, at least having a valid host agreement, that can no longer participate in this process because we've already given out six licenses," Rodrigues said. "And those licenses should have never been given out."

Rodrigues proposed sending the application to the Brockton City Council Public Safety Committee to be reviewed before a vote was taken, but his motion failed. Rodrigues said he thought there were "several questions in regards to the financing of this business" that "should worry some of my colleagues."

Leonard and Redden are the co-owners of the business, but financing is coming from Willette, who will manage the day-to-day operations but is not an owner, and Dr. Keshaudas Pahuja. Willette, the brother of Redden, has put about $250,000 into the business and Pahuja, a local thoracic surgeon, has invested $400,000, Leonard said.

"I know that we have a tendency in this city of pushing things that we like a little quicker than others, but I'm trying to be as fair as we possibly can be here," Rodrigues said, adding that In Good Health, the city's first marijuana dispensary, was initially referred to the council's public safety committee for a review.

Councilor-at-large Winthrop Farwell said the council is known to "routinely grant licenses here conditional upon certain things happening," which could include execution of a valid host community agreement.

Ward 6 City Councilor Jack Lally, whose ward the business will be in, added stipulations to the license, including that hours of operation be 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., there be no retail sales and that the business does everything possible to limit the odor of marijuana outside the facility.

"This is going into my ward. This is the only marijuana-related, anything related to the industry that's coming in, so I want to stress that if this is not done right — and I'm not meaning to cast aspersions, I don't think you're going to do anything improper — but I want to say for the record, for the folks at home, for everybody, if this isn't done right, we can and will bring the license back in for a hearing," Lally said. "Brockton's not going to start off on the wrong foot and most certainly neither will the ward."

Rubin said there won't be any foot traffic to the building since it's not a retail business.

"This is a wholesale operation," he said. "They'll be cultivating and manufacturing the products, packaging them and them bringing them into a delivery vehicle at the loading dock down on the first floor and having them hopefully delivered to our city retailers for resale."

In July, the city council granted five marijuana licenses to pot shops proposed for a former Papa Gino's at 897 N. Montello St.; the former Webster Bank branch at 747 Centre St.; the former Wainwright Law Office at 255 N. Pearl St.; the original Tommy Doyle’s pub building at 327 N. Pearl St.; the former Jiffy Lube at 1915 Main St; and a commercial space currently housing a laundromat and a barber shop at 73 Pleasant St.

Rubin said another marijuana cultivation business is needed in Brockton.

"The city is definitely in need of another location — I understand that In Good Health is doing their cultivation as well — but I think that the city could use the competition," he said. "I know, certainly, that the retailers are anxious to get another local cultivator both helping the city and their tax base, getting this on the cultivation sales side and then on the retail side. This would be an absolute win-win for the city."

The licenses were granted, with Rodrigues, Councilor-at-large Tina Cardoso, Ward 3 City Councilor Dennis Eaniri and Ward 4 City Councilor Susan Nicastro dissenting.

Senior reporter Cody Shepard can be reached by email at cshepard@enterprisenews.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @cshepard_ENT.

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