Fenway’s newest neighbor could be a pot shop. Queensberry Pure, LLC has submitted a proposal for a dispensary at 112-114 Queensberry Street, the former location of Queensberry Laundry Center.

Damond Hughes, a Hyde Park real estate agent who submitted the proposal, said that he has been navigating the legal marijuana industry since 2018, and had trouble finding a location with a landlord willing to sign on to the idea. He said that he has held this lease for over a year.

“We plan on running a business more like a liquor store,” Hughes said. “It would be run like a boutique, not a big box store, so it would not be intrusive to our neighbors.”

Some of those neighbors, however, are concerned about the idea of a dispensary on a one-way, residential street. “That building is kind of small, and it’s also across the street from what’s going to be about 400 units of new housing being built,” said Rich Giordano, director of policy and community planning at Fenway Community Development Corporation, referring to a proposed development at 60-80 Kilmarnock Street. “It’s down the block from a church. It doesn’t strike me as a particularly ideal location for that kind of business.”

'We plan on running a business more like a liquor store,” Hughes said. “It would be run like a boutique, not a big box store, so it would not be intrusive to our neighbors.'

Freddie Veikley, a resident and president of Friends of Ramler Park, expressed concerns that the proposed store is less than a block away from the park, which, like all public parks in the City of Boston, is non-smoking. The location is also next to the Fens and several college campuses, which forbid smoking. “Once [customers] leave the store, they’re going to walk to the nearest open space and light up,” Veikley said. “If everything around it says we don’t want people smoking, why are we encouraging people by selling this product in a residential neighborhood?”

The proposed location is a half-mile of several other proposed dispensaries, including on Brookline Avenue, Newbury Street and Boylston Street near Massachusetts Avenue. Current laws state that there cannot be more than one dispensary within a half-mile radius, but as a black-owned equity applicant, Queensberry Pure could be granted an exception.

City Councilor Kenzie Bok, who represents the Fenway neighborhood, said she shares some of the concerns of her constituents about potential impacts on the residential neighborhood.

“We put the buffer zones in for a reason, to help make sure these [stores] are widely distributed across the city,” Bok said. “It’s important to make sure that lucrative neighborhoods are open to equity applicants, but in the Fenway we already have an equity applicant who is under consideration, and that already would be an exception to the buffer zone. To have one exception given equity consideration can be justifiable, but to have an increased number of exceptions just undermines the original rules.”

For the shop to open, Queensberry Pure must be approved by the Boston Cannabis Board for a license, a process which includes evaluation of the business’s location and security, employment plan, parking and transportation plan and community feedback. After receiving a license from the city, the business needs to apply to the state’s Cannabis Control Commission to be approved. The whole process could take over a year.

Hughes has been involved with several potential cannabis businesses in the Boston area, including a proposed dispensary in Harvard Square which would be a joint venture with California-based brand Cookies. The Fenway store would not be affiliated with this company, although it could sell some Cookies products.

An online community outreach meeting regarding the proposal will be held on October 28 at 6pm via Webex.

“It’s important for us to make it possible for shops to open,” Bok said. “But we have to do it in a way that makes sense with the life and geography of our neighborhood.”