Boston Mayor Martin Walsh signed an executive order Friday that will ban city employees and their immediate family members from participating in or advocating for marijuana businesses currently applying for permission to operate in Boston, in an effort to avoid potential conflicts of interests.

This comes after Fall River Mayor Jasiel Correia was charged Sept. 6 for allegedly extorting thousands of dollars from marijuana vendors seeking to open a location in the city. Three City of Boston employees were also charged this summer with corruption in two different cases.

If anyone involved in a marijuana business is also a city employee, the city will count that against the business when deciding whether to grant approval for the business to open a dispensary in Boston, according to the executive order. 

The order defines being “involved” in a marijuana business to include everything from holding ownership interest, sharing profits or advocating on behalf of the business. 

“The City must not carry out its governmental functions in a manner that undermines public confidence in the neutrality and fairness of municipal decisions or unnecessarily risk actual conflicts or incompatibility of employees’ public and private roles,” the executive order states. 

Along with applying for a license to start a marijuana business, Boston residents must also fill out a Beneficial Interest form that explains the business, personal and capital interests of the applicant, which is signed under the penalty of perjury, according to the press release sent Friday from the Mayor’s Office. 

Besides city employees and their immediate family, members of the Zoning Board of Appeal, the Boston Licensing Board, the Boston Public Health Commission, the Boston Zoning Commission, the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the Boston Planning and Development Agency and their immediate family members are also prohibited from involvement in a marijuana business, according to the executive order.

If an employee is found to be in violation of this rule and continues their involvement with the business after receiving a written notice, they may be fired, according to the Executive Order.

In response to the rule, two members of the Zoning Board of Appeal — Marie St. Fleur and Bruce Bickerstaff — resigned from their positions Friday, according to the Boston Globe. St. Fleur is the Chief Operating Officer of Union Twist, which is seeking to open a dispensary in Allston, while Bickerstaff co-owns Silver Therapeutics, which plans to operate in Roslindale.

Bill Flynn, president of the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition, which works to educate the public about the benefits of establishing a cannabis industry, said he is upset about the new guidelines the Mayor is enforcing on employees and marijuana establishments.

“[The] regulations and everything are very restrictive to the average person being able to start a business,” Flynn said.  

Flynn said his organization has worked to change the laws in Massachusetts for over 30 years and wants the legislature to stay out of the cannabis community and stop telling people how to run their businesses. 

“We need more common sense here,” Flynn said. “We don’t have common sense in the Commonwealth. We have greed. And greed speaks louder than anything.”

Lenore Camassar, 72, of Allston, said she supported the restrictions as she does not think marijuana should expand any further within Boston.

“I don’t think [the rule] will harm [city employees]. I am not that happy with the course marijuana has taken because there is a smoke shop at every corner,” Camassar said. “People see it as a way to make a lot of money.”

David Katz, 33, of Brighton, said he was unsure how to feel about the new regulations as he does not know how this will impact both marijuana businesses and the city employees in the future.

“I don’t know how [the guidelines] will affect the people,” Katz said. “It might help or harm.”

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article misspelled Correia’s name.