After more than a year of studying and debating the issue, Mt. Pleasant city commissioners approved an ordinance Monday to allow medical marijuana businesses in the city.
The two ordinances will take effect in 30 days. One ordinance regulates the facilities and the approval process, while the second ordinance concerns zoning.
Both were approved on 6-1 votes, with Commissioner Tony Kulick voting no each time.
“I’ll be voting no on this issue,” he said. “I think it’s premature to be making these decisions now when recreational medical marijuana will be on the November ballot and God knows what the state is going to do with the rules for that. I think there’s too many grow facilities in the proposed ordinance. I think we should have maintained the 1,000-foot separation from campus. I would like to see separation of parks and churches. I cannot support the co-location of dispensaries in the industrial district. Thus far the state has only approved 15 licenses with a 500 backlog. There’s not enough applicants in my mind to be moving along with this. So I’ll be a ‘no’ vote.”
The city will allow all five types of the facilities: An unlimited number of processing centers, secure transporters and safety testing; up to three provisioning centers (also known as dispensaries) and up to five 500-plant grow operations and a total of three grow operations for the 1,000-plant and 1,500-plant categories.
They will begin taking applications in October, and will decide in September how long the application period will be open.
Applicants must have Phase 1 approval from the state before they can apply in Mt. Pleasant.
Before the votes, commissioners again discussed some of the issues that they have struggled with all year: Buffer zones, the number of facilities, and the lottery drawing to determine who gets approval if there are more applicants than available spots.
“I think if we get back into all of the specifics, after the year and a half that we’ve already spent debating this, we will never come to a conclusion,” Commissioner Kathy Ling said. “There are a number of aspects of this that I am not completely comfortable with, including the stacking and the number of growers. But I think what we have at this point is a reasonable compromise that represents the consensus of both the commission and the community, where we have a lot of different points of view that have been presented…. I’m convinced that what we’ve got at this point is a good trial document and we have a year to see how it’s going to go.”
Commissioners discussed a motion to postpone a decision, but ultimately rejected that idea and moved forward with the votes to approve the ordinances.
Commissioner Lori Gillis made several motions to amend the ordinance, including one concerning the application process. All the motions were defeated.
City Manager Nancy Ridley said the ordinance allows one application per property location.
Gillis was concerned the same applicant could potentially apply for all of the 500-plant grow opportunities at five different sites or all three of the provisioning centers. She proposed amending the ordinance to state that an applicant could only apply for one license in the limited categories.
“I think people will be looking for loopholes so they can get more lottery tickets to throw in the basket. I’m very concerned with the lottery system as it is in this ordinance,” Gillis said. “It allows one person to win one or even all of our limited licenses in the grow category or the provisioning centers. So one person or a limited liability company could submit several applications for every one of our limited licenses as long as they can afford the $5,000 application fee for each and have different locations listed on the application. That is my concern.
“If they are the lucky winners of this lottery, because they have more chances to win, we could end up with a monopoly for the growing facilities and more importantly a monopoly for the provisioning centers. This does not give patients choices. All of these businesses could end up in a total monopoly run by a person, or more than likely, one LLC, destined to make millions of dollars in Mt. Pleasant,” she said.
Her motion was defeated.
Commissioner Will Joseph proposed eliminating the 500-foot buffer zone for properties near the Central Michigan University main campus. That motion also was defeated. The ordinance calls for a 500-foot buffer zone, with the exception of property east of Mission Street.
There also is a 1,000-foot buffer zone for public and private K-12 schools.
Commissioners also rejected a motion to follow a recommendation of the Planning Commission and make the north side of Broadway Street exempt from the 1,000-foot buffer zone.
After the ordinances were approved, Mayor Alison Quast Lents thanked the commissioners and others for the time they have devoted to the issue. The city formed an ad hoc committee last year to make initial recommendations and the Planning Commission also dealt with the issue.
“First, if I could, give a thank you to the commission as a whole. We spent lots of hours on this and I think we had some really great discussions,” she said. “The ad hoc committee obviously put in lots and lots of time and energy. Commissioner Gillis has been heavily invested from the beginning in this process and I want to thank you for your time and energy and comments and concerns and for bringing those to the commission. I think that your voice adds a lot to the discussion and a lot to our decision-making, and I really appreciate that. The Planning Commission spent quite a bit of time on this, and our attorneys and staff as well.”
“This is a very big decision and a very big process, and I want to thank everyone for being involved in that.”
According to Ridley, in order to apply, an applicant will have to:
• Already have Phase 1 approval from the state licensing board. This state approval includes a background check.
• Provide information on where the facility will be located, such as an address and tax ID number.
• If applicants don’t own the property, they will need the current property owner to sign off on it, stating they know the property will be used for medical marijuana facility.
• The city will allow one application per property.
• The application fee is $5,000 per application.
In addition, applicants will need a special use permit from the Planning Commission and Phase 2 approval from the state.
Commissioners also approved a resolution that they will review the ordinances by the end of 2019 to see how things are going and if they want to make any changes.
To read the full ordinance, go to the www.mt-pleasant.org.