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In this Nov. 7, 2012, file photo, medical marijuana is packaged for sale in 1-gram packages at the Northwest Patient Resource Center medical marijuana dispensary in Seattle. The landlord of a medical marijuana dispensary in Boston's tony Back Bay neighborhood says a business selling medical marijuana is the same as a CVS or Walgreen's selling prescription drugs. His neighbors don't agree.

(Associated Press file)

By THOMAS GRILLO

In his first public comments on the controversy over leasing space in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood to a medical marijuana dispensary, the landlord said selling weed is no different than any other legal drug sold at a drug store.

“I don’t understand the fuss,” Arnold Zenker, owner of the 26,000-square-foot building at 364-368 Boylston St., told the Business Journal. “Marijuana is a legal product approved by the voters. It will be dispensed to help people like any other legal medical product that is available at CVS or Walgreens.”

Good Chemistry Massachusetts has signed an option to lease the space on Boylston, less than a block from the Public Garden. The Boston-based company received two of the first 20 licenses issued by the commonwealth last month to open medical marijuana dispensaries. The company’s other store is planned for Harrison Street in Worcester. But it’s the Boston location that has caused smoke to rise in the neighborhood.

Meg Mainzer-Cohen, president of the Back Bay Association, a trade group that represents 400 local companies and can be counted on to support any business venture, said her members were angered that Good Chemistry failed to contact them during the months before or since it submitted its application. She said the group learned of the bid only when the state announced the winning licenses in January. They signed a lease without notifying the neighborhood, she said.

In March, the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay will hear about the plan from Good Chemistry officials in a hearing for its members.

But Zenker said he is surprised by the all the attention paid to the deal. The store’s entrance will be on Providence Street, a narrow street that runs parallel and to the rear of Boylston, he said. The shop will contain about 2,000 square feet for Good Chemistry. The rest of the space and the storefront on Boylston will be subleased to another retailer, he added.

“The rear entrance is like being in a different world and it should make people less nervous,” he said.

Zenker declined to reveal the terms of the lease. But in a filing with the state, Good Chemistry said it has a letter of intent from Barjen Realty, Zenker’s firm, that includes a rent payment of $371,000 or about $60 per square foot, and $3.1 million for build out and equipment costs.