City commission to hold public hearing on recreational marijuana
Mount Pleasant City Commissioner Tony Kulick raises his hand during a city commission meeting August 26 at the historic Borden Building City Hall in downtown Mount Pleasant.
Mount Pleasant took a small step in potentially allowing recreational marijuana businesses within city limits.
Mount Pleasant City commissioners introduced an ordinance to amend a chapter in the city’s code titled “Recreational Marihuana Facilities.” Nancy Ridley, Mount Pleasant City Manager, said the ordinance establishes many regulations for different types of recreational marijuana businesses and the process for the city to approve these businesses.
The commissioners voted unanimously to approve a public hearing on Monday, Sept. 9, which means any resident can attend to voice their opinions on any aspect of the proposed ordinance regarding recreational marijuana.
Commissioner Kathleen Ling said she wants public comments since there would be new things that Mount Pleasant has not experienced before.
"I’m really hoping we hear some public comments on this (ordinance),” Ling said. “This is a whole new area (for Mount Pleasant)."
Ridley said the ordinance has been discussed through multiple work sessions and was crafted as similar to the medical marijuana ordinance as possible and listed some of these similarities. Like with medical businesses, she said there will be a limit to three recreation retailers in the city.
However, Ridley said the ordinance would also approve two micro businesses in addition to the list of retailers. These are businesses that grow, process and sell marijuana products in the same facility. Mount Pleasant Mayor, Will Joseph, said this means there could potentially be five to eight retailers approved in the city.
Some other parts of the ordinance Ridley talked about include limiting temporary marijuana event organizers to just selling edible-type products in the city. All these types of businesses cannot be located within 1,000 feet of K-12 schools or within 500 ft. of Central Michigan University's main campus.
The commissioners also discussed how the set amount of businesses will be approved during a work session after the main meeting. Joseph said the state law that was passed last year does not allow them to do a lottery drawing like they did with the medical businesses if a city wants to limit the number of recreational marijuana businesses. Instead, Ridley said the businesses must be chosen based on a list of criteria that would be best for the city.
The ordinance divides the criteria for potential business owners into separate categories that totals to 100 points. These categories include background of business ownership, number of full-time employees and the design of the establishment.
Some of the commissioners discussed these criteria at length. Ling said she was concerned about establishing criteria on businesses hiring local city workers, fearing if workers moved away from Mount Pleasant, the businesses could no longer meet the requirement to stay open. Joseph said this criteria was removed.
In addition to all the talk on recreational marijuana, the commissioners unanimously passed a resolution to recognize the Isabella County Soup kitchen as a non-profit organization. This allows them to obtain a charitable gaming license. Joseph said they have been doing a lot of renovations and serving more people recently. He said he was thankful to their contributions to the community.
