Council to hear from public on location of marijuana dispensaries
DETROIT FREE PRESS
The Detroit City Council has set a public hearing on zoning regulations for medical marijuana shops at 1 p.m. Dec. 17, 2015.
The Detroit City Council today set a public hearing for next month on its proposal to regulate medical marijuana distribution in the city.
The council will hold the hearing at 1 p.m. Dec. 17 on zoning restrictions that will govern where pot dispensaries can and cannot locate in Detroit. It is to be the companion legislation to measures that the council approved in October requiring dispensaries to be licensed by the city and shop operators to be subject to police background checks.
Detroit has seen a proliferation of more than 150 unlicensed and unregulated dispensaries in recent years, and it’s taken a year for city officials to thoroughly research and prepare a regulatory system that will both limit the number of dispensaries and ensure that medical marijuana patients have safe access to the drug, according to Councilman James Tate, who has spearheaded the regulation effort.
Councilman Scott Benson, a vocal critic of the dispensaries who says many of them are merely fronts for recreational put use, sought to have the zoning ordinance changed to prohibit dispensaries from locating in the vast majority of commercial or retail strip malls in the city, but that motion was outvoted.
Councilwoman Raquel Castañeda-López also sought to have the ordinance prohibit clustering of dispensary operations in industrial areas of the city, saying that would hurt residents who live near industrial areas. Her motion also was outvoted.
The zoning ordinance’s restrictions mandate that dispensaries not be located within 1,000 feet of schools, churches, drug-free zones, caregiver centers and liquor stores.
Dispensary owners and advocates of medical marijuana have argued that the city’s restrictions would leave few areas of the city where dispensaries could operate legally, reducing access for people who use marijuana for legitimate medical needs. But residents have flooded public meetings on the issue, saying their neighborhoods have been overrun by pot shops.
Contact Matt Helms: 313-222-1450 or mhelms@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @matthelms.
Detroit Free Press 5:03 p.m. EST November 24, 2015
