WARREN — Anyone looking for clarity about the future of Warren Mayor Jim Fouts’ proposed ordinance dealing with the growth and transfer of medical marijuana will have to wait until the new year.
“We will be having a Committee of the Whole (meeting). I am scheduling a Committee of the Whole (meeting) for the first Tuesday in January,” Warren City Council Secretary Kelly Colegio said Dec. 7. “I want to make sure that everyone has ample time to really research it.”
On Nov. 10, a divided council voted 4-3 to table the mayor’s requested ordinance that would govern where and how medical marijuana can be grown and transferred in the city of Warren.
Fouts has said repeatedly that he wants to keep “de facto commercial” medical marijuana grow operations out of the city’s residential areas. He has cited numerous issues ranging from obnoxious “skunk” odors and increased traffic, to a risk of fires or explosions, to the potential for increased crime in his call for a new ordinance that would impose ventilation and filter specifications, require inspections, and relegate grow operations to industrial zones.
Colegio, who supported the motion to table a decision on the ordinance last month, said she supports the mayor’s ordinance “100 percent.”
“We have gotten calls here in the (City Council) office from residents that are concerned about it,” Colegio said. “The issue is not whether people have medical marijuana. The issue is if people should be running a business out of their homes, unregulated. The answer is no. It needs to be regulated.”
City Council members Scott Stevens, Steven Warner and Patrick Green voted against the motion to table, after Stevens and Warner supported an earlier motion to deny.
Stevens likened the mayor’s support for the ordinance to a “whim,” and suggested the measure could cost the city financially if the ordinance package is challenged in court.
Several people addressed the council on Nov. 10 to lay out arguments in support of the state’s medical marijuana law, which was approved by a majority of Michigan voters in 2008. Among them were several attorneys and medical marijuana advocates who said they support continued access to medical marijuana as prescribed under state law.
In a letter dated Nov. 25, Fouts welcomed council members to offer revisions or pose questions about the ordinance in writing.
“My hope is that this motion was not meant to ‘bury’ this ordinance permanently. It deserves action as soon as possible,” Fouts said in the letter. “Many Warren residents continue to complain to me about medical marijuana concerns in their neighborhoods. Therefore, I urge each City Council member to offer revisions so actions can be taken as soon as possible.”
Fouts also sought to again clarify his position on medical marijuana in general.
“I am not opposed to medical marijuana, but what I oppose is the distribution of marijuana for (from) medical grow operations in our residential neighborhoods,” Fouts said. “This causes traffic problems, odor issues, the danger of house fires, and potential increases in robberies and (breaking and enterings).”
The council will meet to discuss the matter during a Committee of the Whole session on Jan. 5. The meeting will be held in the conference room next to the auditorium at the Warren Community Center, located at 5460 Arden Ave.
About the author
Staff Writer Brian Louwers covers the cities of Warren and Center Line. He has worked for C & G Newspapers since 1998 and is a graduate of the University of Michigan-Dearborn. In his free time, he participates in the Michigan State University Extension Master Gardener Volunteer Program and conducts interviews with military veterans for the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress.
