CONWAY — Two budding entrepreneurs are interested in starting a marijuana cultivation and manufacturing establishment on property they purchased at 1230 Main Poland Road about a year ago.
At least a dozen people attended a community outreach meeting held Saturday in the Town Hall by Philip E. Bowden and Sean Leah Bowden, married music Ph.D.s who say they want to operate a family-run marijuana business that provides the town with economic opportunity and tax revenue.
Some residents expressed concerns about the potential enterprise and the effects it could have on Conway, particularly on its youth, and the Bowdens calmly worked to put people’s minds at ease. Philip Bowden said he and his wife are excited to be a part of the community and look forward to contributing positively to it.
The Bowdens are proposing up to 10,000 square feet of outdoor organic marijuana cultivation, as well as solventless manufacturing, which is hashish production and rosin pressing that uses no solvents, such as butane or carbon dioxide. Philip Bowden, who did most of the talking Saturday, said the property has a storied history as farmland.
“We’re going to utilize low-impact, organic farming practices to minimize disturbances to the surrounding wildlife and ecosystem,” he read from a prepared statement. “For those of you who are familiar with the area, it is quite a pristine environment, and we really respect that, and want to do our best to have a business plan that’s in line with that.”
He said the outdoor cultivation will supply product mainly to its extract manufacturing operation so it can be sold wholesale. There will be no retail on the site.
“One of the unique aspects of this property is that we don’t have residents abutting the property. The closest residents are about 1,700 to 1,800 feet away,” he said. “We’re going to put a perimeter fence and privacy screenings up around the entire property. The fencing is actually going to be dual purpose, because we are planning on trying to maintain a low-impact agricultural operation in addition to the marijuana cultivation. We’ll have ‘No Trespassing’ signs posted around the perimeter.”
Philip Bowden, 36, said areas near Main Poland Road can feature additional privacy screenings, if necessary. He said trees will be planted as a buffer and the fence line will be slightly elevated so wildlife, including wood turtles, can pass underneath it. He explained the 10-acre property has a garage that may be turned into a propagation room, a sealed-off environment with some LED lighting. He also said he and his wife would love the opportunity to repair the two barns on the property.
He said storage and propagation will start off in three 40-by-8-foot shipping containers “to get the project off the ground.” They will have all the mandated security and odor controls and won’t be visible from the road. There will be one for storage, one for curing and one for propagation. The Bowdens plan to insulate the containers and add wood paneling to the outside to make them more attractive.
“Basically, one of the containers dries the weed, another of the containers stores the weed,” he said. “And then, well, we’re likely to have one more container just because it’s good to have as much propagation space as possible that’s really environmentally sealed and protected.”
He added that they want to use the area closest to the road for vegetative growth. There will be a small hoop house, an additional outdoor grow area.
The plan is for a house addition to be equipped with an ice machine, some freezers, a pharmaceutical freeze-dryer, a 20-gallon hash tumbler, pneumatic rosin press, a 15-gallon electric air compressor and maybe, an automatic trimmer for the flowers.
He also said all inventory and sales would be tracked.
One woman told the Bowdens she is concerned about the influence a marijuana facility could have on Conway adolescents. She said marijuana use is being normalized and young people playing in the woods have stumbled across private residents growing marijuana, which was legalized in a statewide vote in November 2016. She also questioned whether the odor from the proposed establishment will truly be minimal.
He responded by saying the business could be an asset to the town.
“Conway definitely needs more local businesses, and by bringing a business of reasonable scale and ambition to Conway, we’re trying to be kind of like Goldilocks – not too big, not too small. Hopefully, we can serve as a model for other people in the community,” he read. “Also, Conway is very heavily dependent on property taxes, and I think it’d be great to alleviate that with more business.
“So, by being first in line, I think we can serve as a blueprint, in particular, for small farmers in the community interested in cash crop,” he said. “I think there’s a general possibility for synergy with the agricultural community here.”
Another woman thanked the Bowdens for their thoroughness, but wanted to know how products will be transported off the property. Philip Bowden explained there will be obligatory GPS tracking to prevent the diversion of product. He said vehicles smaller than a box truck would not travel daily to the property.
The Bowdens said the industry’s biggest harvest is typically mid-fall, and they said they plan to hire seasonal workers and ease into full-time.
He told The Recorder he and his wife, Leah, 30, have been married for four years and earned doctorates in music from University of California San Diego. They work as baristas at Shelburne Falls Coffee Roasters at 1207 Mohawk Trail in Shelburne Falls, and are looking for adjunct professor employment in The Five College Consortium.
Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-722-0261, ext. 262.