GREENFIELD — The Zoning Board of Appeals voted unanimously on Monday to require the candle manufacturer Aromatic Fillers to get a special permit to continue its operations on Haywood Street.

The board voted to allow the company 90 days to either appeal the ZBA decision or apply for a special permit from the Planning Board before the city takes action.

The board met Monday to continue a May 16 hearing at which resident Marion Griswold claimed that the candle company was operating a manufacturing business in a residential zoning district without proper permitting and emitting noxious odors.

Aromatic Fillers owner Todd Green has been making candles at 38 Haywood St. since 2015 under a license that was initially granted for a tool manufacturing business. Although Aromatic Fillers is located in a residential zoning district, the 2-acre lot was grandfathered for commercial use, and in 2014, Robert Savage was granted a manufacturing permit for the production of cutting tools.

“Reading the needed minutes when the permit was granted … nothing came up about smell. It just feels to me like common sense that if this had gone before the special permit process, somebody in that neighborhood would have said ‘What about smell’ and the board would have started to factor that into the special permit,” ZBA member Mark Maloni said. “It just feels to me like this is enough of a difference in [use] that it shouldn’t just roll over.”

The fact that the company’s current permit was issued for a different purpose than its current one prompted debate among the ZBA, Green and Green’s attorney Jacob Morris on whether the candle manufacturing facility can legally operate using a special permit that was issued for tool manufacturing instead.

Although Green declined to comment on the board’s decision, Morris mentioned to ZBA Chair David Singer that he planned to appeal the board’s decision if it voted not to recognize the business’ current permit. He added that his client’s right to operate Aromatic Fillers under its current permit was “black-letter law.”

In response, Singer argued that under precedent of the 1973 Powers v. Building Inspector of Barnstable case, the business is required to apply for a special permit to approve the site’s new use.

“You and I went back and forth multiple times at the last meeting as to why [the Powers case applies] and you haven’t given me any reason to believe that you’re correct. You’re applying a law that doesn’t apply here,” Morris said.

Although the ZBA held the hearing to determine if the site’s permit is legally applicable to its current use, much of the public comment centered around whether its odor had a negative impact on the surrounding neighborhood.

Even though Morris said he and his client submitted a petition in support of Aromatic Fillers signed by 53 abutting residents, some neighbors claimed smells emanating from the business significantly reduce their quality of life.

“I just want to be able to breathe fresh air and not to breathe in the chemicals,” Griswold said. “This is not just me, this is not about me. There are other people that complain there is an odor. We’re not lying, we’re not making it up. We have better things to do.”

Others, such as former Health Director Jennifer Hoffman, spoke in favor of Aromatic Fillers’ use of the site under its current permit, noting that after multiple inspections, the Health Department found no harmful chemicals or noxious odors on the site.

“I have gone on multiple times driving by with one of the inspectors Nicole [Ducharme] and drove by [at] all different times. We never smelled anything except McDonald’s. One hundred percent of the time, McDonald’s, no candles. We would take big, huge breaths — nothing,” Hoffman said. “There was nothing ever found during any inspection that would have been deemed harmful or toxic.”

Although Morris noted that Aromatic Fillers is currently in compliance with all of the conditions of its permit, members of the ZBA agreed that the permit conditions were not issued in the context of a candle manufacturing site.

“There is no condition about smell,” Singer said. “Why is there no condition about smell? Because this is different. Because the Board of Appeals, which would have said, ‘Hey, there’s an issue of smell’ if there was something related to this, wasn’t really thinking about that because smell wasn’t an issue. A lot of it was around noise.”

Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at acammalleri@recorder.com.