MEDICAL MARIJUANA SHOPS CONSIDERED

Royal Oak Weighs Letting Growers Set Up in Business District

Royal Oak -- Woodward Avenue has been a magnet for car enthusiasts
and shoppers for decades, but the boulevard soon may earn a new
reputation as Michigan's first pot zone.

Royal Oak's leaders are contemplating a zoning ordinance that would
require medical marijuana growers to set up shop in the city's
general business district, which encompasses the retail and
commercial business strip along the byway.

The proposal, to be discussed Tuesday by the city's Plan Commission,
targets growers who are state registered caregivers of medical
marijuana patients. It would not apply to qualified patients who are
physician-certified to grow the drug.

City planner Doug Hedges said leaders had concerns about illegal
activity sprouting up at private residences where marijuana was being grown.

"The act does allow a caregiver to be compensated for services so
they are a potential commercial activity," Hedges said. "We thought
it best to treat them as a business. We don't allow home occupations
in Royal Oak where a customer visits a home."

The Plan Commission will hold a public hearing on the proposal and
make a recommendation to the City Commission.

State law allows caregivers to grow marijuana for up to five
registered patients, which means caregivers may legally possess 2.5
grams and 12 plants per patient for a total of 12.5 ounces and 60
plants. Hedges said a single caregiver isn't likely to make a viable
business out of five patients, so he expects caregivers to act as a
consortium and possibly set up shop together in a storefront as a
medical marijuana dispensary.

Chuck Semchena, a city commissioner and former anti-drug task force
prosecutor for Oakland County, said: "The potency of the marijuana is
so great and the number of harvests can be great, and the potential
for that marijuana to end up somewhere else in the hands of someone
with no authority to have it is great."

Diane Richards, owner of Rec Diving, a scuba gear outfitter, on
Woodward, said she wants to know more about how such dispensaries
would operate. "But if the choice is between having it at my next
door neighbor's house or having it in a zoned business area where
it's more controlled and they are contributing to the tax base, then
it's business all the way," said Richards.