Northampton is a marijuana-friendly city. Nearly 70 percent of voters voted to legalize recreational marijuana, and one of the state’s first adult-use retail stores opened there. Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz has fielded calls from applicants who are interested in opening marijuana cafes, and he is generally supportive of allowing and regulating these businesses.

But under current state law, for a municipality to allow social consumption would require 10 percent of city voters to submit a petition that would be considered by voters at the next state election – at this point, not before November 2020.

“Particularly if you’re in a city like Northampton where 70 percent voted in favor of it, why would you then carve out this one piece that would require a separate ballot initiative, and a pretty labor intensive one that would require a high bar in terms of signatures?” Narkewicz said.

Rep. Aaron Vega, D-Holyoke, sponsored a bill that would make it easier for cities and towns to host marijuana cafes and other social consumption sites. The bill would clarify what is currently a murky part of state cannabis law – how municipalities can regulate social consumption.

The Cannabis Control Commission has not yet written the rules for licensing social consumption sites. They are expected to have draft rules by April, with final rules done by June. But experts say there are problems written into the law itself.

The ballot question legalizing marijuana, which voters passed in 2016, established the law requiring a citizens’ petition and a vote before a city or town can allow on-site marijuana consumption.

But Richard Evans, a Northampton lawyer who was on the drafting committee for the ballot question, said the intention of the law was to also let city and town governing bodies – like a city council or a board of selectman – make that decision.

“I think one can make a strong case that if a municipality wants to have a social consumption establishment, it’s entirely within their province to pass bylaws authorizing (it),” Evans said.

“But I’m in the minority on that,” Evans said. “Most people construed the law as tweaked by the Legislature as requiring the ballot question.”

Evans helped draft Vega’s bill, which is sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Julian Cyr, D-Truro. The bill states that no referendum is necessary if a social consumption facility is authorized by local law. Essentially, Vega said the bill would let cities and towns vote to opt out of hosting social consumption facilities, the same way they can now opt out of hosting other marijuana businesses, like stores and grow facilities. They would not have to opt in.

Vega said he is open to other possibilities, such as requiring a vote of the town’s governing body to allow social consumption in towns that voted against the ballot initiative. But he thinks the current structure is burdensome, particularly in communities that want marijuana businesses.

“We don’t ask communities to vote if they ask for another liquor store or McDonald’s in the community,” Vega said. “Those are regulated and have negative and positive effects. It doesn’t make sense to isolate this industry that’s so new to go through a rigorous vote to opt into something.”

Vega said for communities where voters supported legalizing marijuana, “It just seems like an unnecessary measure to go back to a vote on an issue that communities have already voted on.”

Will Luzier, political director of the Marijuana Policy Project of Massachusetts, who managed the pro-legalization ballot campaign, said there was never an intention to prohibit a local legislative body from authorizing on-site consumption. He said while the 10 percent requirement might be possible in a smaller city or town, in a city like Boston, it would “literally be a herculean task.”

“It would be virtually impossible for someone who is interested in establishing social consumption to do that in the city of Boston,” Luzier said.

Another point of confusion in the existing law is how the referendum would be conducted.

Debra O’Malley, a spokeswoman for Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, said only a small number of communities have an existing process, written into a city or town charter, for local initiative petitions.

Galvin filed language with the Legislature to change the process to one where Galvin’s office would write a standard petition, and cities and towns could use those to initiate a vote on social consumption.

(Rep. Mark Cusack, a Braintree Democrat who helped write the law, previously told the Boston Globe that the law is clear, and Galvin should be able to implement it without a legislative fix.)

Easthampton Mayor Nicole LaChapelle is among the supporters of Vega’s bill. She called social consumption the “logical next step” for the marijuana industry, which she said “now has pretty good guidelines of how to operate” in terms of managing and selling marijuana products.

LaChapelle said social consumption is another source of revenue and jobs for municipalities. “For a city the size of Easthampton, it fits very nicely into our overall local economy,” LaChapelle said. “It makes sense… A boutique social consumption facility is something we would welcome.”

The Cannabis Control Commission has said it may start with a pilot program where a small number of sites open first, giving the commission an opportunity to monitor them.

LaChapelle has told the commission that Easthampton would like to be part of that program.

Detractors of social consumption sites have voiced concerns about safety issues, such as patrons driving home impaired. But supporters say they give people a place to consume marijuana when they are not allowed to use it at home – for example, if they rent or live in federally subsidized housing.

Geoff Kravitz, economic development director in Amherst, said he thinks the purpose of the current law allowing a citizens’ petition is so that a city council cannot block a business that residents want. “But it’s unclear why a local legislative body couldn’t take that action by themselves,” Kravitz said.

Kravitz said Amherst wants to explore what social consumption looks like and how it would interact with current laws prohibiting smoking in workplaces.

Kravitz said the current law “doesn’t allow for the local legislative body to actually take any action, which in my mind, that’s what they’re elected to do.”

This is one in an occasional series of stories about bills sponsored by Western Massachusetts lawmakers.