East springfield not the place for a dispensary
Dear Editor:
A few weeks ago, here in the Boston Sun, there was a news story concerning the opening of a recreational marijuana store at 60 East Springfield St. in what is now Café Quattro. I grew up in lower Roxbury and the South End and for many years living on East Springfield Street. Back when I was 2 years old my family lived across the street at Number 58. Growing up I remember the current restaurant site was Messina Flower Shop, which was owned by a family who lived upstairs from the flower Shop.
I believe East Springfield Street is hardly a good site to sell weed and doesn’t belong there. Growing up it seemed the South End became a dumping ground for the whole city. I remember when the first methadone clinic opened up in the ground floor of the old Boston City Hospital Outpatient Building across the street from the City Spa Cafeteria and Worcester Square back in 1969. It caused all kinds of issues for the neighborhood and eventually was moved over by Frontage Road.
I hope the Worcester Square Area Neighborhood hangs together tight. This is not a case of NIMBY at all. With “Methadone Mile right around the corner down at Albany ad Mass Ave., it would probably only make matters worse for the quality of life for my old childhood neighborhood.
Over in East Boston my current neighborhood, the same company looking to sell weed out of East Springfield has already been approved to open a site on McClellan Highway. The neighborhood association voted against that proposal but it is now in the works. At least however the site is on the other side of the highway away from residential streets.
The South End is currently the epicenter of the region’s opiate crisis. For the company, this is a business decision but for the neighborhood it is their everyday existence.
Sincerely
Sal Giarratani
East Boston