After a year of work, Mt. Pleasant city commissioners have finalized the details of a draft ordinance for medical marijuana facilities in the city.

City commissioners discussed a few issues at their work session Monday, including buffer zones, whether applicants should be vetted at the local level and how much the fines should be for businesses that violate the ordinance.

A crowd stayed after the regular meeting to watch the work session at City Hall, and many on hand were people who plan to apply for licenses once an ordinance is in place.

The draft ordinance will be sent to the Planning Commission, which will set a public hearing and ultimately vote on a recommendation.

If all stays on schedule, the City Commission is expected to have a public hearing of its own on May 29, followed by another work session in June.

Here is a look at the issues discussed Monday:

Buffer zones

The draft ordinance calls for a 1,000-foot buffer zone for K-12 schools, both public and private.

It also calls for a 500-foot buffer for Central Michigan University.

Commissioners revised the CMU buffer zone a bit, to allow for medical marijuana businesses on the east side of Mission Street.

They would still be subject to the 1,000-foot buffer zone in regards to the high school, but areas basically south of Big Boy would now be eligible for provisioning centers.

They also decided they want the buffer zone to apply to the main campus of CMU.

Stacked licenses

The state will allow stacked licenses for 1,500-plant grow operations, meaning one location could have more than one license.

Commissioners decided to allow up to three stacked licenses.

In all, the draft ordinance would allow for three grow locations overall. Those could be 500-plant sites, 1,000-plant sites or 1,500-plant sites. Only the large sites can have stacked licenses.

Fines for infractions

Commissioners could not reach an agreement on fines, and instructed City Manager Nancy Ridley to have staff research the issue and let commissioners know, via email, what the decision is. This will keep the draft ordinance on track to go to the Planning Commission.

Some discussion considered having the fees be small, such as $50 for the first infraction and $100 for the second.

Commissioner Tony Kulick was in favor of much higher fines.

“A first violation of $5,000 to me seems too punitive,” Commissioner Will Joseph said. “We want a fee that says, ‘Hey, we’re not messing around, we want you to follow our rules, but we don’t want you to incur a severe financial burden over a one-time thing. I’m OK with increased fees, if it becomes a regular behavior. But a first-time fee of $5,000 seems pretty high.”

Ridley said city staff will look at what other communities are doing as part of their research.

“What I’m hearing is we all agree it should be higher than the standard (fine), but nobody has any specific recommendations,” Mayor Allison Quast Lents said. “So maybe the staff could, for purposes of finishing the ordinance, look at what we have and what other communities have and bring us a recommendation.”

Vetting applicants

The draft ordinance calls for up to three of each type of facility: Provisioning centers (also known as dispensaries), processing centers, secure transporters, and quality testing facilities. They would give licenses for grow operations at three locations.

Only provisioning centers could be in certain commercial areas of the city. All five types would be allowed in industrial areas.

If more than three applied, the draft ordinance says the city would use a lottery.

City Commissioner Lori Gillis wondered if the city could give preference to local applicants.

Attorney Nicholas Curcio indicated that there could be concerns about whether the city can legally favor a local applicant.

Curcio said the draft ordinance calls for a true lottery in a public meeting, whether that be pulling names out of a hat or using a power ball type of drawing.

“It appears to us that it’s the least risky legal way to select in terms of potential challenges. There are other ways to do it, other communities are doing it. Some ways have more risks than others,” he said.

The proposed ordinance is only a draft ordinance at this point.

The Planning Commission could recommend changes and city commissioners could make changes after the public hearing.

Lents requested that a work session of the City Commission be set after the public hearing, so commissioners could consider any input they might receive before voting on the ordinance.