WINDHAM — Three weeks after conditionally awarding two recreational marijuana business licenses, the Town Council voted to rescind one of the licenses in favor of a different applicant.
There were seven applicants for two recreational business licenses that were initially reviewed at the council’s Sept. 15 meeting. Each application was rated on a point system and the top two highest scorers were awarded licenses.
On Tuesday, the council unconditionally approved licenses to the new top scorers, Paul’s Boutique Nursery on Crimson Drive and JAR Cannabis Co. on Storm Drive. JAR, which is owned by Adam Platz of Auburn, previously ranked third.
The council originally awarded Paul’s Boutique Nursery and Windham RSL the licenses, conditional on confirmation of sales tax receipts for marijuana businesses in Maine, but outside of Windham. Town Manager Barry Tibbetts had already confirmed this information for the top three applicants ahead of Tuesday’s meeting.
However, the council decided to reconsider the applications after Tibbetts found new information regarding Windham RSL’s property lease that would affect scoring totals.
Applicants could receive one point for having a lease or ownership interest in their store property, but Tibbetts said upon digging further he found that Windham RSL holds a sublease, which councilors agreed did not meet the requirements of the ordinance.
“Subleasing arrangements are very, very common in commercial real estate … to call into question the leasing arrangement for which Windham RSL received a point, at this point at the end of the process, by reading language into the ordinance that isn’t there really seems to be overreaching in a sense and undermining RSL’s application,” said Jim Pross of the Auburn law firm Skelton Taintor and Abbott, who represents Windham RSL.
One of Pross’ main complaints was that this new evidence came to light following an email to the town manager from an unnamed applicant who did not receive a license raising the issue, among others.
However, councilor David Douglass said that they were reconsidering not based on the anonymous complaint, but on the new information Tibbetts discovered in doing his due diligence investigating the claims.
Windham RSL’s original application showed that they held a lease for the property at 765 Roosevelt Trail from “landlord” CannaRx, but Tibbetts said this is actually a sublease.
CannaRx is leasing the property at 765 Roosevelt Trail, but is not the owner.
“(The applicant) had to show that they did have a current vested, legal interest in property in Windham. And a sublease is not necessarily that because a sublease has to be authorized by the master lease and there has to be a master lease,” said town attorney Kristin Collins.
“I could give you a sublease saying that I am purporting to give Councilor Douglass an interest to this property in the shopping center because anybody could purport to give an interest in property to anybody else. Do they have that interest to give? Not necessarily.”
Councilors Brett Jones, Tim Nangle and Clayton Haskell were not present at the meeting.
According to state records, Windham RSL is owned by Garrin Brady of Windham and Manuel Alonso-Poch of Miami, Florida.
In a Sept. 29 email exchange between Brady and Tibbetts, Brady said that CannaRx, which he and Alonso-Poch also own, is a “real estate holding company” that leases its properties on 15 Danielle Drive and 765 Roosevelt Trail to licensed caregivers and adult use businesses. While Windham RSL at 765 Roosevelt Trail would be the licensee, not CannaRx, some town materials used the names interchangeably.
State records show that Windham RSL currently has a pending application for a recreational marijuana store in Windham, but there were no records of any adult use applications from a “CannaRx.”
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