Medford Signs Agreement With 3rd & Final Retail Marijuana Dispensary

MEDFORD, MA — Medford Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn has signed a Host Community Agreement with the city’s third and final recreational marijuana dispensary.

The city signed the five-year agreement with Victory Gardens, which plans open a retail marijuana dispensary at 114 Mystic Avenue.

The site, currently home to the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) facility, will be fully renovated and house both the retail shop and a separate space for the City’s veterans.

Victory Gardens now joins recreational businesses Theory Wellness and Sanctuary Medicinals as the third retail marijuana company to enter into a Host Community Agreement with the City. In mid-July, Mayor Lungo-Koehn signed a host community agreement with the City’s first cannabis cultivation company, Mystic Cultivate.

Victory Gardens will need to obtain Special Permit approval from the Zoning Board of Appeals before they can begin operation. They are also subject to approval from the state’s Cannabis Control Commission.

As with the prior agreements with Theory Wellness and Sanctuary Medicinals, the leadership at Victory Gardens made it a priority to hire Medford residents whenever possible and has agreed to Mayor Lungo-Koehn’s requirement that at least 50 percent of its employees will be women, at least 35 percent of employees will be of diverse backgrounds, and at least 5 percent of employees will be military veterans. Priority will also be given to local vendors whenever possible for resources and materials.

As part of the Host Community Agreement, Victory Gardens has agreed to support Medford’s veterans’ organizations with annual donations of $50 thousand to groups that support veteran’s needs and will invest in renovating the current VFW facility. The city will also be collecting 3 percent of gross sales on a quarterly basis per the agreement.

“Throughout my time as Mayor and throughout this selection process it has been and will continue to be very important to me that the City identifies and pursues meaningful partnerships with social equity candidates whenever possible,” Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn said in a statement. “As the only applicant with that designation to rank in the top 5 in this process, Victory Gardens co-owner Tito Jackson is committed to building a strong relationship with our community that promotes inclusion and enhances social equity.”

“From the first conversations I had with the Mayor, it was clear that her number one priority was investing and caring for the future of Medford veterans,” Tito Jackson ,CEO of Victory Gardens, said in a statement. "I’m glad that from this partnership, we will be able to work with Mayor Lungo-Koehn and her team to create a space that will serve the City’s veterans and make annual investments in expanding programs and funding resources for them. Medford has a diverse talent pool and the Mayor recognized the value in partnering with a social equity company that reflects the values of the community.”

“Thanks to this agreement that Mayor Lungo-Koehn negotiated, we’ll be able to restore and revitalize the VFW facility, expand our membership numbers, and create more opportunities, programs and resources for Medford veterans,” Earl Ercoline, Quartermaster of the Medford VFW, said in a statement. "This is a truly landmark moment for the men and women in uniform and I’m thrilled that they are being prioritized by the City.”

Medford voters approved regulated recreational marijuana dispensaries in a citywide election in November 2016. The Medford City Council began working on an ordinance in 2016 and approved zoning amendments to support the siting of these dispensaries in September 2020, with a vote to adopt a Cannabis Advisory Committee in November 2020. A Committee was convened and began its process in February 2021 with final recommendations submitted in Fall 2021. The mayor signed the first CHA in early March.

Under City Ordinance, the mayor may negotiate up to three Host Community Agreements for marijuana dispensaries.