The decision Littleton’s Planning Board made on Sanctuary Medicinals’ Special Permit can be found at the Middlesex Registry of Deeds.

If you go to the top left of the search bar, you can select “Search Criteria” to get to the drop-down menu, where you’ll find “Book Search.” Click on that and enter “69268” in the Book window and “464” in the Page window.

One record will come up.

Click on “DECISION” to access that record.

On the right half of the page, you’ll see “View Details” on a tab.

To the right of “View Details,” you’ll find another tab, labeled: “View Images.”

Click on “View Images” and a new window will pop up, where you can read Sanctuary’s Special Permit.

There’s a lot there, but if you go to page 3, Paragraph 10, you’ll see this:

The applicant has provided testimony about the filtration and sanitation of air within the building to prevent any odors from being emitted from the building.

I wonder if the applicant’s “testimony” before Littleton’s Planning Board is the sort that’s given under the pains and penalties of perjury.

Hmm.

Irrespective of the solemnity of the “testimony,” one can reasonably conclude that the applicant’s testimony was, in effect:

Thanks to Sanctuary’s “filtration and sanitation” of the “air within the building” no odors will leave the building, because, Sanctuary’s filtration and sanitation systems “prevent any odors from being emitted from the building.”

Sanctuary did not testify that their filtration and sanitation systems would diminish “any odors.”

Sanctuary testified that the odors would be prevented from being emitted.

Had Sanctuary testified, “Oh, it’ll be skunky, but we’ll do our best to diminish the smell,” maybe Sanctuary would have been told to find a different town to stink up.

But that’s not what came in as testimony,

Jenna