CHATHAM — Selectmen Tuesday moved ahead with plans to draft new bylaws which, if approved by voters, would snuff out any chance of recreational marijuana shops opening in town. Leading the charge was selectman Dean Nicastro, who noted that 57.6 percent of Chatham voters rejected last year's petition to legalize recreational marijuana, though a majority of voters across the state approved it. The new law allo...

CHATHAM – It's certainly true that they're not making any more land. And the land that exists is getting more and more valuable; the town's total value has now topped $6.7 billion. That's borne out by the latest data from the town's assessing department, which shows that property values have increased by 5.1 percent over last year. Although Chatham has seen numerous high-end, multi-million dollar sales, the in...

CHATHAM – Few people can say that cancer hasn't touched their lives, either through their own family or people they know. For Ashley Stearns, that connection was unexpected, and uncomfortably, close. Stearns was living in Orlando, Fla., when she learned that her father, Blake, had bladder cancer. She came back home, where her parents own and operate Marion's Pie Shop, for her father's surgery and to drive him ...

CHATHAM – Back in the 1980s, the local bay scallop fishery was booming. For several months of the year, it was a viable commercial enterprise, with many locals jumping in to take advantage of the bounty found in Pleasant Bay and other near-shore locations. But sometime in the late '80s or early '90s, bay scallops became scarce. For nearly two decades now, there's been barely a commercial harvest in Chatham; la...

CHATHAM – The planning board will see new drainage plans for the controversial Hunter's Rise subdivision off Barn Hill Road on Sept. 12. Developer Eastward Companies is proposing a 14-lot subdivision for the seven-acre property, formerly the site of the Hunter's Pine Acres cottage colony. Ocean Port Lane neighbors to the south, which is down hill from the planned development, had expressed concern about erosio...

CHATHAM — Even as Florida residents brace for a potentially catastrophic strike from Hurricane Irma, local residents are doing what they can to ease human suffering in Texas from Hurricane Harvey. A number of small-scale efforts are underway in various local churches, and a private citizen from Texas, who was visiting the Cape at the time of the storm, returned home with boxes of masks, gloves and other supp...

CHATHAM — It's a proposal that is raising a number of questions and a few eyebrows, but a Florida-based firm is proposing a 40-mile-long network of 15 balloon-mounted cameras to watch for sharks near bathing beaches between Provincetown and Chatham.  The concept floated by officials at Altametry involves deploying balloons on beach days at Harding's Beach in Chatham, two at Lighthouse Beach, one at the north...

CHATHAM – Electric car charging stations in downtown Chatham? The town could become one of the first in the area to offer the convenience to electric car owners as part of a proposed $1 million makeover of the town offices parking lot. There are currently about two dozen electric car charging stations on the Cape, although most are private, located at inns, campgrounds and car dealerships. The detail is inc...

CHATHAM – After several Stage Harbor Road property owners expressed skepticism about a National Historic Register District designation for the neighborhood, the historical commission plans to send a letter answering questions raised at an informational meeting Saturday and taking a straw poll to determine support for the designation. The Massachusetts Historical Commission has already determined that the Stage...

CHATHAM – Rebecca Catron regularly walks down Harding's Beach, past the parking lots toward the eastern tip of the beach. In July, she began noticing more and more dead birds on the beach and in the water, sometimes several within a few feet. “I was thinking gosh, this is not normal,” she said during a walk down the beach last week. “I'm used to seeing one or two dead birds, but this is extreme.” It turns o...

Every September, students and teachers returning to school deal with a whole host of changes and new challenges, from entering a new school to learning the names of new classmates and students. When the Monomoy School District begins classes next Tuesday, students, parents and teachers will face a much more fundamental change: new school day starting and ending times. “It's a big adjustment, on a lot of lev...

CHATHAM — For many years, you could almost locate the intersection of Main Street and Old Queen Anne Road in Chatham by smell. The odor of natural gas meant you were there. The low-grade leak in the pipes under the roadway was enough to cause a strong smell, but not enough to pose a public safety risk. Over the course of years, people reported the odor to the fire department and the gas company would investi...