Once the Department of Revenue gives the money to cities and towns, though, it becomes a municipal public record. Through emails and phone calls to local officials made over the course of a week, The Republican/MassLive.com obtained the size of the tax distribution for almost every municipality with a recreational marijuana store.

Of the 15 cities and towns, all but two gave exact amounts. An Uxbridge official said the amount was “a little over $92,000.” Fall River officials directed questions to the city’s law office, which as of Friday, had not responded to a request emailed Monday. (Under the public records law, Fall River officials have 10 business days to respond.)

The information shows that NETA’s distributions are among the state’s largest, despite the Brookline store only opening for recreational sales in the middle of the quarter.
NETA in Northampton was one of the first two recreational dispensaries to open in the state. In Brookline, NETA was the first recreational dispensary to open in the immediate Boston area and the only one accessible by public transportation.

The only other community to collect more than $200,000 in the quarter was Great Barrington, the home of Theory Wellness, which took in $225,800.

Other large tax distributions were paid to Leicester ($176,690), Easthampton ($163,131), and Wareham ($128,494).
Leicester is home to Cultivate, which opened for recreational sales the same day as NETA in November. INSA in Easthampton and Verilife in Wareham both opened for recreational sales in December. Theory Wellness started selling to the recreational market in January.

These are all among the more established companies in Massachusetts. All of them also sell medical marijuana, so they were able to rely on their experience and their own cultivation facilities to start selling to the recreational market.