SHOPPERS REACT TO NEW POT DISPENSARY AT AUBURN PLAZA

AUBURN - Rhonda Washburn said it creeped her out.

A brand new medical marijuana dispensary next to her favorite store,
Craft-Mania.

"Whoever heard of such a thing?" said the Auburn woman.

Brett Larlee, however, called it a great idea.

His father, suffering from Stage 4 cancer, is in the process of
getting a doctor's note for marijuana to help with the pain and
discomfort of chemotherapy.

Think pharmacy, not drug dealer, said Larlee, of Auburn.

Many noontime shoppers coming in and out of Craft-Mania and Big Lots!
on Friday, a day after Remedy Compassion Center announced plans to
move into the Auburn Plaza, were surprised by the news but largely
unfazed.

Police said they hadn't heard any reaction and don't plan a stepped-up
presence when it opens Dec. 13. Owners Timothy and Jennifer Smale had
looked around Oxford, Franklin and Androscoggin counties before
deciding to site their new dispensary in the former Northern Mattress
& Furniture.

"We have a totally different idea about such things," said Johannes
Methorst, who moved from the Netherlands to Litchfield two years ago.
"If it is really under control and really helping people, it's OK."

It wouldn't stop him from shopping there.

"I just think it's a little strange to have in a mall," said Darcey
Bubier of Auburn. "It wouldn't keep me away. I'd wonder what my kids
were thinking."

For that reason, signage on the building will be important. Right now,
on the tail end of the plaza, there's nothing above the roof line and
just a few old stickers left on the door from Gobiel's Furniture's
short-lived discount store last winter.

"If it's going to help people who are in pain, I don't mind it," said
Crystal Coady of Lewiston.

Linda Parker, whose bell-ringing station for the Salvation Army is in
front of Craft-Mania, said she doesn't like drugs but that the new
dispensary wouldn't keep her away this season or next.

"I'd feel a lot more comfortable shopping next to a dispensary than
shopping next to a methadone clinic," Timothy Martin of Rumford said.

Denise Larlee, Brett's wife, said she thought Remedy Compassion Center
could cut down on outside drug-dealing: "A lot of people who sell
marijuana sell other things, too."

"As long as there is security and the door has a card (system)," she
said, it wouldn't bother her.

Management at Craft-Mania and Big Lots!, the future dispensary's
closest neighbors, declined to comment.

Auburn Deputy Chief Jason Moen said police had reviewed the Smales'
security plans for the site. Once it opens, they'll "treat it like any
other business, nothing out of the ordinary for extra enforcement
because of the nature of their business."

Moen said nothing required the Smales to tell other stores in the
plaza that they were moving in.