Pennsylvania-based Medical Marijuana Grow Facility Hopes to Take Root in Lower Pottsgrove Bunker

Photos by Evan Brandt

Bunker Botanicals wants to establish a medical marijuana grow facility 20 feet underground in this Cold War bunker off Porter Road.

The latest medical marijuana grow facility to make headlines this week wants to truly be an underground operation.

Last night, the Lower Pottsgrove Township Commissioners voted 3-1 to send a letter of support to the state for a proposal to establish a facility in a Cold War-era bunker 20 feet beneath the surface of the ground.

Originally built by the phone company to withstand a nuclear attack, the bunker was once full of what is now vintage equipment that would have allowed vital communications to continue after a nuclear attack.

It has since become an "attractive nuisance," a place for teens to hang out and a canvas for local graffiti artists, said Commissioner Ray Lopez.

Geoff Whaling address the Lower Pottsgrove Commissioners

But Robert Basile and Geoff Whaling would like to transform it into a 50,000 square-foot underground grow facility for Pennsylvania's newly legalized medical marijuana.

Basile, who owns at least one nursing home, said he became interested in medical marijuana because of the relief it offers several senior-related ailments, such as dementia.

Geoff Whaling, who would managed the facility, has spent much of his energy in previous years advocating for the passage of a medical cannabis law in Pennsylvania and said he is pleased that the 17 medical conditions it is authorized to treat is the largest number of any state that has legalized marijuana.

"One of the things you have to remember is we're making medicine," Whaling told the commissioners. "There is a great demand for this in Pennsylvania."

But its unclear how great the demand will be since patients will have to be "qualified" to receive a prescription from doctors, who are also just getting up to speed on the use of the cannabis products as medicine.

Whaling's initial estimate is between 65,000 to 120,000 patients statewide as things get up and running.

Pennsylvania's law allows no plant material to be distributed under its law "so you won't see bags of marijuana like you do in Colorado," said Whaling.

Rather, all Pennsylvania's products will be in the form of pills, ointments,

Whaling outlines the specifics of the proposed underground 

medical marijuana grow facility for the commissioners.

tinctures and other medicinal products. That's what will leave the grow facility in an unmarked black van less than once a day, Whaling told the commissioners.

As for security, being underground certainly limits access, but there will also be a fence and two full-time security guards, said Whaling.

The facility will initially employ six people at first and eventually employ up to 15 when the space in the bunkers is fully utilized, he said.

"When I first heard about it, I thought it was going to be like a smoky opium den," said Lopez, who said he has since visited the facility and been educated about the operation.

"It's more like if Merck was making an application," he said mentioning the Montgomery County-based pharmaceutical giant.

The facility "would be a real win-win for the township's tax base and for the company," Lopez said.

But not everyone was convinced.

Fire Marshal Lew Babel noted there is only one fire exit.

The commissioners accept a $2,500 donation from

the Pottsgrove Soccer Association for a new lawn mower.

That, plus not having enough information about security, convinced Commissioners Vice Chairman Stephen Klotz.

"I'm not going to debate medical marijuana," said Klotz. "I don't agree with it, but that's not why I'm voting no on this motion."

That issue, plus a $2,500 donation from the Pottsgrove Soccer Association to help with the purchase of a new lawn mower for the township, were the primary issues of the night.

So here are the Tweets:

Is the Pottstown Metropolitan Region Going to Pot?

Photo by Evan Brandt

Montgomery County Planner Donna Fabry explains how Pennsylvania has been divided into six zones to ensure that the first state licenses for growing medical marijuana are distributed evenly across the commonwealth during a presentation Wednesday night to the Pottstown Metropolitan Area Regional Planning Committee.

I literally cannot throw a stone in any direction this week without stumbling across a story about medical marijuana.

It was discussed Tuesday night at the Upper Pottsgrove Commissioners meeting AND at the Limerick Supervisors meeting, and again last night at the regional planning committee.

A bad picture of the inside of a grow facility from Fabry's

presentation to the regional planners.

It will be discussed tomorrow night at the Lower Pottsgrove Commissioners meeting, according to this post in the Sanatoga Post.

I hope I'm not getting paranoid. I hear that can happen sometimes.

Anyway, given that this is the open period for applying for the two state permits that will be awarded in the seven-county southeast region, I guess it makes sense.

But they sure do seem to want to be located in the greater Pottstown area.

The discussion last night centered around zoning and whether the eight

Pennsylvania will not allow dispensaries here to have

cute pot-related names like this one in Montclair, N.J

No sense of humor. Darn Quakers.

municipalities that comprise the regional planning committee want to zone for both the grow facilities and state-licensed dispensaries individually or on a regional basis.

No consensus was reached other than to go back to their respective boards and get their input before making a decision.

Also on the docket was discussion of building proposals made in Montgomery County in the past year.

Long story short? They are up from the low around 2010 during the housing crisis.

Lower Pottsgrove and New Hanover had the most housing units proposed in the region, thanks to Sanatoga Green, Spring Valley Farms and the Town Center plan in New Hanover.

The market for age-restricted housing seems to have collapsed, Realtors can't sell the units. Most seem to prefer age-targeted, which lacks the legal restrictions to keep the young-uns out, according to Montgomery County Planner Donna Fabry.

And the group also discussed the idea of having a regional code of appeals board. The Universal Building Code requires townships to have them, but many don't.

And, when the Owen J. Roberts School District briefly challenged a decision by East Coventry Township for the construction of a new elementary school, the township had to scramble to put one together.

Douglass (Mont.) has one and has used it several times, said Township Manager Pete Hiryak, but most other towns don't and are interested in the idea.

Berks County maintains one that local municipalities can join if they wish, said Montgomery County John Cover, who promised to draft a proposal for one the Pottstow-area municipalities can look over.

Other than that, it's time to scroll through those world-famous Tweets!

Pot Zoning, Boy Scout Bridges and Animal Laws

Photo by Evan Brandt

Members of Boy Scout Troop 129 are honored by the Upper Pottsgrove Township Commissioners in recognition of the scout's construction of a second bridge over Fox Run in Hollenbach Park.

There were a total of four different meetings I could have attended last night.

I chose Upper Pottsgrove Commissioners over Douglass (Mont.), Lower Pottsgrove Planning and a joint meeting between Pottstown Borough Council and the school board -- all because of one word.

That word is Marijuana.

Not that I wanted some, but because a commissioners discussion about zoning for it was on the agenda.

It is a hot topic these days. In fact while I was listening to the commissioners talk about whether they wanted to zone for it locally, or through the Pottstown Metropolitan Area Regional Planning Committee -- which meets tomorrow -- an entrepreneur was proposing a grow facility in Limerick Township.

You can see some of that discussion in the Tweets below thanks to my colleague Eric Devlin, who was covering that meeting.

The Upper Pottsgrove discussion was fairly brief and inconclusive, but that fact that there is also a a grow facility being proposed in West Pottsgrove, makes it all part of a larger discussion on the issue.

Look to future issues of The Mercury for that.

In the meantime, the Upper Pottsgrove Commissioners were plenty busy in their own.

They approved an easement for a property no one owns to allow for the proposed Mattress Factory on Commerce Drive so the business can go to closing on the building ... I know, don't ask.

Commissioners also discussed tax breaks for volunteer firefighters, a discussion that is also underway in Pottstown.

They also added $15,000 to the price ceiling for engineering work on the proposed new public works building and discussed sewer work and paving in the Regal Oaks subdivision and whether to require residents to connect to the system. No decision yet on that one.

Discussion was also had over forming a regional code of appeals with other municipalities and how the township gets revenue from a billboard located on township property. They didn't like the latest proposal.

And then there was adoption of a new noise ordinance in the township -- a long-time coming -- as well as the draft for a new animal nuisance ordinance, which is not yet ready for adoption.

You can read all about it in the Tweets below.

Now, can someone tell me what happened at the other three meetings?

No Pool for 2017 in West Pottsgrove, But Commissioners OK With Marijuana Growing Facility

I will say this for the West Pottsgrove Commissioners, when called upon, they certainly know how to pack a whole lot of news into a short period of time.

In a 40-minute long meeting, they announced the township pool will not be opening for 2017; that they have no opposition to a 100,000-square foot medical marijuana growing and processing facility being built on the property of the former Stanley Flagg Brass site; that they are reducing Dek Hockey hours at the West Pottsgrove Elementary program run by the Pottstown Police Athletic League and that they were withholding payments to the West End Fire Company for reasons that were not entirely clear to me.

That's a lot of stuff.

The reason some thing were not clear to me, quite frankly, is due to technical problems. I always struggle to get a signal in the township meeting room and only managed to Tweet out after I hit upon the idea of using my iPhone as a "hot spot" for my iPad -- all very frustrating I assure you.

The West Pottsgrove Pool will not even be filled this year.

But several things were quite clear.

First among them that the township pool will not open for the summer this year, largely because any company that has been approached about managing the pool wants a guaranteed return, something Commissioner Pete LaRosa said the township is not prepared to provide.

He and commissioners Charles Valentine and Dominic Gentile agreed to serve on a committee to find a way to open the pool for the summer of 2018 "with no cost to the township," LaRosa said.

The bigger story, perhaps, was the commissioners' unanimous decision to sign a letter saying, in essence, they have no objection to a medical marijuana growing facility being erected on the site of the former Stanley Flagg Brass plant.

Keith A. Morgan, a partner in the Holistic Farms operation, said the growing and processing facility will all be under-roof; in fact in a concrete building with no windows that is so secure, it has been described as a "Fort Knox."

Not only is the proposed 100,000 square-foot replete with cameras, the lock if so

An indoor medical marijuana growing facility in Maryland.

complex it costs $4,000, he said by way of example.

Once up and running at full size, it could provide as many as 150 jobs, according to information he provided at a previous township meeting.

But this is by no means a done deal.

Morgan explained that Pennsylvania, the 28th state to legalize marijuana for medical purposes, will issue only 12 permits statewide.

The state has been divided up into six regions for this purpose and Morgan's company will be competing with others for one of only two permits to be issued in the 11 counties which comprise the Southeast Pennsylvania region.

He said his company is hedging its bets by also pursuing a license for another site in New Castle, Lawrence County in the Northwest region.

To apply, Morgan said his company must pay $10,000 application fee, as well as a $200,000 cost if the license is approved. The license is good for one year costs $30,000 to renew every year.

The cost to build the facility is estimated at $10 million but the potential returns are significant given that this is anticipated to be a $1 billion a year business in Pennsylvania in five years.

In the meantime, if approved, the West Pottsgrove facility would slowly amp up, starting in a temporary growing building, particularly given that there may be as few as 3,000 citizens enrolled statewide in the first year.

By the third year however, given that 17 different ailments are certified to receive marijuana prescriptions, the number of enrollees may rise as high as 50,000, said Morgan.

The proposed facility in West Pottsgrove -- which would still need to go through the land development process to be built -- would grow the plants, remove the THC and CBD, the chemicals of medical use.

The chemicals would be processed at the site into pills, lotions or ointments, said Morgan.

The state is scheduled to make a decision on which companies get the license in June, but Morgan said most believe an Aug. 15 date is more likely.

Residents at Wednesday night's meeting offered observations that ranged from endorsement, to caution.

Tina Himes said the facility would be good for jobs and for the tax base, while Gladys Frain wondered if the road construction project of Route 422 or the fact that the site is in the 100-year flood plain would post any problem.

Morgan said no.

Another resident worried about potential crime, but Morgan and Police Chief Matthew Stofflet said the facility will be extremely secure, if built.

In other business, Stofflet said he had met with the board of Pottstown PAL about residents complaints about the Dek Hockey program run at West Pottsgrove Elementary School on Grosstown Road.

He said PAL agreed that there will be no more Friday games, and that blocks of time will be blocked off from play. They include: April 10 to April 16 for Easter; May 26 through May 29 for Memorial Day; May 14 for Mother's Day; June 18 for Father's Day as well as no Sunday games after 6 p.m.

Additionally, a smoking ban will be instituted and parking will only be allowed on the school grounds.

And with that, here are the limited Tweets I was able to get out from the meeting: