Patriot Care Corp. has a license to sell medical marijuana and wants to open a dispensary at 21 Milk St. But the Zoning Board of Appeals, which must approve the location, deferred a decision until Aug. 4 after the issue attracted droves of passionate supporters and opponents to a City Hall hearing Tuesday.

Mayor Martin J. Walsh says he knows medical marijuana dispensaries are coming to Boston and has no intention to try to block them. Yet three years after voters approved the medical use of marijuana, a proposal to open the city’s first — and, so far, only — dispensary in Downtown Crossing remains contentious.


If the Milk Street location is rejected, it could take Patriot Care “months, maybe even a year or longer” to find an alternative site, said Patriot Care attorney Michael Ross, a former city councilor.

The mayor’s office recommended the deferral, encouraging Patriot Care to talk to opponents. Ross said the company will heed the mayor’s advice.

Patriot Care is the only company so far awarded a state license to sell medical marijuana in Boston. It is opening dispensaries in Greenfield and Lowell and is operating in Arizona and Washington, D.C.

Ross said the Downtown Crossing location is ideal, despite criticism from neighbors that it is too close to places frequented by children, such as the Freedom Trail and nearby bus stops.

Those critics said the dispensary should be attached to an existing medical facility.

Ross said the Milk Street site has been vacant for a decade and its central location and proximity to several subway lines make it convenient for those needing the drug.

Walsh, who was not present at Tuesday’s meeting but had stridently opposed adoption of the medical marijuana law, said Tuesday during a meeting with the Globe's editorial board that he recognized dispensaries are inevitable and that a shop could “potentially work” on Milk Street.


“I think a lot of people are concerned about the unknown,” he said. “Some neighbors are worried about the clientele it’s going to attract, others are worried about the location.”

“Six months from now,” the mayor said, “when we have a medical marijuana facility in the city, it might not be an issue at all.”

Patriot Care is proposing a 6,000-square-foot facility that would be open 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, including weekends. Ross said the dispensary would not be directly accessible from the sidewalk but “tucked away” in the building, which would also have office space.

The dispensary would have no signs on its exterior, Ross said.

City Council President Bill Linehan said the dispensary should be attached to, or near, a medical provider.

“My mother suffered from Parkinson’s for 21 years and just passed months back, so we all know this is something that’s needed in our city, but this is not the right location,” Linehan said.

He said Downtown Crossing is “finally starting to take off” and the dispensary “doesn’t send the right message.”

Kristen Mansharamani, who owns Torit Montessori School, said her school is just outside the 500-foot zone that must separate dispensaries from educational facilities. She said that residents and business owners had fought to eliminate the Combat Zone and its unsavory elements from Downtown Crossing, and they view the potential arrival of a medical marijuana dispensary as a throwback.


Boston police Deputy Superintendent Bernard O’Rourke said at the meeting the police department opposes the location. He said he foresees problems with on-street drug dealing and the “great unknownness” of the location.

Ross said Patriot Care spoke with Boston police and plans to hire off-duty officers to help with security. Ross also said the dispensary will never shift to selling marijuana for recreational use, even if Massachusetts voters approve such sales.

The Midtown Cultural District Residents’ Association conducted a survey of residents and found that of the 86 who responded, 59 percent were against the dispensary.

Rishi Shukla, a leader of the association, said he was concerned that a dispensary would exacerbate parking woes in the neighborhood. The company estimates 100 people will use the facility each day and does not foresee a problem with street parking.

Councilor Josh Zakim, whose father, Leonard P. Zakim , died of cancer in 1999, said he was troubled medical marijuana is still not available in the city, despite being approved by voters in 2012.

“My father was suffering from something that turned out to be terminal cancer,” he said. “Having something like this available, legal, safe, clean, and accessible on the T, and by car, in a central location like this would have made a huge difference.”

Andrew Ryan of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Sara DiNatale can be reached at sara.dinatale@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter at @sara_dinatale.