MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARY ORDINANCE WON'T PLEASE
EVERYONE

Crafting an ordinance to regulate the local medical marijuana
dispensary business has proved to be one of the toughest, most
contentious efforts the Windsor Town Board has ever undertaken.

By comparison, allowing Wal-Mart to come to town was a walk in the
woods.

The creation of an urban renewal authority? Kids play.

The Great Western Industrial Park annexation? Just a simple exercise
in civics.

No, nothing comes close to the difficulty under which the town board
has operated to figure out how these dispensaries should operate and
where.

Terminology has been debated. So has ethics, location, and the right
to do business legally.

The biggest problem for the board, however, is that the majority of
the town's residents are adamantly opposed to the industry and would
love to see these businesses in someone else's backyard.

But, that's not going to happen.

Town officials can't force the two existing dispensaries to close.
They have been grandfathered in and will operate here as long as they
do it legally. And only when they go out of business will a new
dispensary will be allowed to replace them. But never more than two
dispensaries at a time.

The only option for the town is to regulate the two approved
dispensaries and to regulate them closely.

That's what the town's 26-page proposed ordinance attempts to
do.

Town board members did a little additional tweaking to it last Monday
night. The measure now moves to the Windsor Planning Commission for
review on July 1.

If the commission finds problems with the ordinance, it will forward
suggestions to the town board for consideration on July 12.

Likewise, if the commission has no problems with the ordinance, it
will simply recommend that the town board approve it on July 12 during
a first reading. A second and final reading of the ordinance will go
before the town board on July 26.

Of course, the town board could still decide it doesn't like the
ordinance for whatever reason and defeat it.

But, that action would likely open the door to some potential, nasty
litigation.

This truly is one of those situations where you're damned if you pass
the ordinance and damned if you defeat it.

It certainly won't be a win-win for many.

So, who's to blame for this mess?

We are. The voters. We absent-mindedly passed the state amendment in
2000 that legalized these dispensaries without regulations attached.

We let the genie out of the bottle and now it's going to be next to
impossible to keep a cork on this issue.

Let's hope this ordinance will prove to be a good stop-gap measure
until tougher state or federal regulations are adopted.