AMHERST — Town officials are considering limiting the number of recreational marijuana businesses to eight and prohibiting stores from opening until 2019.

Even though 74 percent of Amherst voters last November voted in favor of legalizing marijuana — significantly higher than the 54 percent support statewide — town officials are considering bringing forward a series of warrant articles to fall Town Meeting.

At the Select Board meeting Monday, the first opportunity for the public to offer oral feedback on these articles, Economic Development Director Geoff Kravitz said they are being considered as a way of getting ahead of regulations that will be set by the state’s Cannabis Control Commission.

“I think it’s a good idea to have zoning in place as soon as possible,” Kravitz said.

This zoning would include limiting licenses to eight establishments, prohibiting public consumption that would include edibles and vaporizers, creating a new use category in the town’s zoning bylaw that would guide where recreational pot shops can be sited, and the temporary moratorium.

Select Board member Alisa Brewer said what may be presented to Town Meeting is the biggest possible envelope of regulations, and that both her board and the Planning Board may not recommend all for approval.

The cap of eight retail marijuana stores, Planning Board member Rob Crowner said, would be enough to ensure that they could be in downtown and the various village centers.

Otherwise, Crowner said, the board is treating these shops as if they will be a normal part of the retail landscape, and planners don’t intend to make it any harder to open a marijuana shop in Amherst than a package store.

Kravitz said he believes such a cap can be done through both the general and zoning bylaws, so long as the cap isn’t set below 20 percent of the 11 licenses for off-premise alcohol sales. If an attempt were made to limit to three or four stores, he said, that could be subject to a townwide ballot vote.

The Planning Board holds a public hearing at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Town Hall to discuss the warrant articles.

No one from the public spoke in opposition to the proposals on Monday.

Peter Vickery, a Precinct 2 Town Meeting member, said he would like to see the marijuana tax, or impact fee, set aside for harm reduction programs. These will be needed to help adolescents who will find it easier to access a narcotic that is currently only on the black market, he said.

Kravitz said the local option sales tax can be up to 3 percent, but it’s unknown if this will cover costs to the town.

Heather Warner, a representative of the Strategic Planning Initiative for Families and Youth, or SPIFFY coalition, said statistics in surveys of 8th, 10th and 12th graders throughout Hampshire County shows that more than 56 percent of high school seniors have experimented with marijuana, with 40 percent using the drug within the past 30 days.

Those numbers will rise, she said. “It’s a big issue and it’s going to get bigger,” Warner said.

Health Director Julie Federman said one key will be messaging and finding ways to limit its attractiveness to youth.

“I see that as happening in partnering with the schools,” Federman said.

At the college level, the Campus and Community Coalition to Reduce High-Risk Drinking is focused on alcohol, as well as narcotics and substances affecting health and well-being, Federman said.

A challenge will be regulating edibles and their use in public spaces. Marijuana smoking is already handled in a similar fashion to tobacco, being banned at municipal parks and pools while activities and games are occurring.

“There’s a lot to be figured out here in terms of enforcement,” Federman said.

It’s a concern shared by Police Chief Scott Livingstone, who said marijuana legalization will likely mean an increase in crashes.

“There’s no current mechanism for testing for impairment,” Livingstone said.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.