IN JUST ONE DAY, CITY GETS ENOUGH MARIJUANA LICENSE APPLICATIONS TO
EXCEED PROPOSED CAP

Eight medical marijuana providers applied for licenses to do business
in Bozeman Tuesday, leaving the city with one more application than
the 32-license cap the Bozeman City Commission has proposed.

"It's too early to know what the final end game is because we'll have
to see what happens with those applications," Commissioner Chris Mehl
said Tuesday afternoon.

But if the city winds up with too many people vying for not enough
licenses, "we'll have to deal with that if and when it happens," he
said.

The commission voted late Monday night to provisionally cap the number
of medical marijuana providers allowed in the city at 32 -- or one for
every 1,250 residents -- for one year while the city tries out its new
rules on the drug.

If the cap receives final approval, the city would require providers
with four or more patients to have a city business license. Providers
outside city limits would need a license if they deliver to patients
in Bozeman.

As of Monday, the city had already issued 16 business licenses to
medical marijuana providers and was reviewing nine
applications.

By Tuesday afternoon, the number of applications under review had
risen to 17, Mehl said.

City Attorney Greg Sullivan said the city will review the applications
as they've come in, although which ones get approval first depends on
how complicated they are. For example, if the provider has to make
changes to a building, that might take longer, pushing that
application back in line.

If a provider is caught without a license, Sullivan said the penalty
could be a $500 fine or six months in jail, the standard penalty for a
misdemeanor offense. Each time a provider is found operating without a
license, they would be charged with a separate, additional offense,
with fines or jail time mounting.

The cap is part of an ordinance the commission adopted Monday night
that outlines how medical marijuana can be used, sold and grown in the
city. The regulations could become final as early as Aug. 25, or 30
days after a second review and final adoption.

But the head of the Montana Medical Growers Association said he hopes
the commission will rethink its plan.

"It is our hope that they will relook at that and focus not on the
number of caregivers, but focus on limiting the number of
storefronts," said Jim Gingery, executive director of the MMGA.

Gingery said there are already more than 500 providers, also called
caregivers, serving more than 2,700 patients in the Gallatin Valley
and capping it now would be tough.

Mehl, who proposed the cap on cannabis businesses, said Tuesday it is
intended to give the city time to see how the medical marijuana
industry will work here and thus how best to regulate it. Once
businesses are established, it's difficult for the city to close them
down.

He also said city officials had heard that most providers in the
valley have fewer than four patients and would not be affected by the
cap.

Besides, he added, the city has 13 pharmacies and that's been enough
to serve other medical needs.

Mayor Jeff Krauss was the only commission member who voted against the
cap Monday night. He said Tuesday that he fears it will drive
providers underground.

"We want to know who they are and we want to know what they're doing
and we want to know that they're legal," Krauss said.

The provisional ordinance adopted Monday also would make it a
misdemeanor for patients to use medical marijuana in public, with
violators subject to a $500 fine and up to six months in jail.

Gingery suggested the offense be civil rather than criminal, with
smaller fines.

"We don't believe that medicating in any circumstances should be a
criminal offense," he said Tuesday.

In addition, the new rules call for a 1,000-foot buffer between
schools and cannabis shops, city inspections of shops and a ban on
shops on Main Street downtown.

Current city law does not allow providers to operate out of
neighborhood homes and only allows growing operations in
residential-suburban areas at the edge of the city where agricultural
uses are allowed. The city is considering allowing growing operations
in heavy manufacturing areas, zoned M-2, as well.

Montana voters overwhelmingly voted to legalize marijuana for medical
use in 2004. But growers kept their operations small and out of sight
until the Obama administration announced in October that the federal
government wouldn't prosecute growers and sellers who complied with
their states' laws.

In Montana, a licensed medical marijuana patient can only legally buy
from one caregiver, whose name is printed on the back of his or her
state license.

Each patient can legally grow six plants on their own. Caregivers are
allowed to grow six plants for every patient they have.