BOSTON — Host community agreements between marijuana companies and municipalities are not working as envisioned by the Legislature, advocates told lawmakers on Monday.

“It isn’t even close to working,” attorney Jim Smith, who represents marijuana companies, told the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Cannabis Policy at a public hearing.

The committee held a hearing on bills that would address some of the trickier areas of marijuana policy: host community agreements and social consumption sites.

Proposed bills would give the Cannabis Control Commission authority to regulate the agreements that marijuana businesses must sign with cities and towns. The commission has asked for that authority.

State law today caps “community impact fees” that communities can charge companies at 3% of sales. The law does not preclude cities and towns from requiring donations to nonprofits or additional fees, which many do.

Smith said he has seen agreements that require marijuana companies to pay 4% or 5% of sales.

“There’s huge abuses here,” Smith said. “You anticipated cities and towns would negotiate fairly. They have not. They see this as open season.”

Sen. Julian Cyr, D-Truro, who sponsored a bill to let the Cannabis Control Commission regulate and enforce host community agreements, said onerous agreements are increasingly a barrier to entry for minority-owned businesses and small craft cultivators.

Bills pending before the committee would also make it easier for cities and towns to allow “social consumption,” businesses like marijuana cafes, where someone can buy and use marijuana on-site.

Current law requires a city or town vote to authorize social consumption. Many communities do not have a process in local government to initiate this vote.

Cyr, who wants to let a local governing body allow social consumption, said he wants to make it easier for a place like Provincetown, where voters overwhelmingly approved marijuana legalization, to host cannabis cafes. He worries what will happen if there are multiple dispensaries in a tourist-friendly town but no place where visitors can legally consume it. He worried they would smoke illegally on beaches.

“If we don’t provide a pathway for people to be legally consume a product they’re able to buy, we’re going to have real challenges around public safety,” Cyr said.

Members of the Massachusetts Prevention Alliance, a group that aims to prevent addiction and underage drug use, testified against allowing easier access to social consumption.

Josephine Hensley said eliminating the requirement for a vote “undermines local control” that voters were promised in the ballot question legalizing marijuana. It also undermines existing laws guaranteeing workers a smoke-free workplace.

Theresa Hoggins said she lives in Harvard, a rural town with no public transportation. She worries that if marijuana cafes are allowed, people would drive impaired. “Citizens of a town should have the right to vote specifically for their town,” she said.

Ornella Quinn of Berlin said she worries that allowing social consumption would decrease the perception of harm around marijuana use among teenagers.

“If we want to discourage use among our teenagers, common sense would dictate we need to have a regulatory framework that prioritizes our health rather than industry’s interests,” she said.