Another applicant is proposing a recreational adult-use marijuana dispensary in the Fenway at the former location of a Queensberry Street laundromat.
Queensberry Pure intends to open at 112-114 Queensberry St., with proposed hours from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily, according to members of the team that includes Damond Hughes, one of the co-founders and currently an employee of Compass Real Estate.
Rebecca Adams, a compliance consultant, said patrons would enter through the front of the business to find ample space for queuing before reaching a station where they would need to provide identification for proof of age (21+) and then move on to the retail area with seven points-of-sale.
The store’s total occupancy would normally be 42, with 12 individuals in the waiting area and another 15 in the sales area, she said, but in accordance with COVID-19 regulations, the total occupancy would be reduced to 21, which includes only 12 customers.
“We will manage customers entering and exiting the facility,” Adams said, “and do our best to make sure there aren’t lines.”
Queensberry Pure also hopes to limit the number of customers in the store with an online ordering system and quick pickup lines, and by offering delivery two or three times a week.
In response to whether “pre-roll” packages designed for single use would be sold there, Adams replied they hadn’t yet finalized the menu offerings.
The business has also yet to undertake a traffic study to gauge its potential impact on the neighborhood, she said.
The applicant was also previously unaware of K Street – a nonprofit based at 74 Kilmarnock St. that serves members of the LBGQ community in recovery – but Adams said they would contact their would-be neighbor as part of the outreach process.
Queensbury Pure will also work with the Green Soul Community Development Foundation –a nonprofit funded in part by a donation from MedMen “that will focus on workforce development and economic empowerment for the disenfranchised in the Boston area,” according to a statement from the national cannabis retailer.
MedMen won’t be involved in Queensbury Pure’s operations, however, Hughes said; although incidentally, they have received a host agreement from the city to open a retail cannabis outlet on Brookline Avenue.
Alex Sawczynec, a Brookline Avenue resident and Fenway Civic Association board member, called the proposed site a “poor choice,” especially considering the potential adverse effect it could have on residential parking. But he said he was impressed with the applicant’s presentation and would likely support their plan at another location.
Sawczynec, however, was critical of the city’s process surrounding recreational cannabis that now dates back two years in the neighborhood, and which he described as “really opaque and frustrating to follow.”
Tim Horn, president of the Fenway Civic Association board of directors and a East Fenway resident, said the proposed location of the dispensary is in defiance of an existing zoning plan for the neighborhood, which followed an arduous process and limits the “entertainment district” to the area north of Boylston Street while restricting the area south of it from that usage.
“No liquor stores are even allowed on that side of street, except for one that was allowed to move back there after 30 years,” he said. “It’s not set up to ever again to be a commercial-use building. It’s supposed to be redeveloped for housing – that’s what this area of the Fenway is all about.”
Moreover, Horn added: “It’s not about more businesses. Not redeveloping this parcel as housing is just against everything we worked against for so many years.”