OWOSSO COUNCIL DELAYS ACTION ON MARIJUANA RULES

OWOSSO -- Medical marijuana in the city of Owosso will not be
regulated by a city ordinance -- at least for the time being.

The Owosso City Council did not move ahead with two proposed zoning
ordinance amendments that would limit the areas that medical
marijuana producers would be able to operate within the city limits
during its meeting Monday night.

The council voted to pull the two proposed changes from the consent
agenda during the meeting at the request of city staff. By pulling
the proposals, the council did not set a public hearing, which is
required to have the ordinance changes move forward.

Assistant City Manager Adam Zettel, who was sitting in for City
Manager Donald Crawford during the meeting, said the two proposals
submitted to the council by the city's medical marijuana subcommittee
were not written in the way he believed the committee members
intended them to be.

"The impact would be different than intended," Zettel said.

Zettel said much of the problem stemmed from the fact cumulative
zoning rules would extend the scope of the committee's intent.

Cumulative zoning rules would allow anything that would be
permissible in a single-family R-1 zoned area to also be permissible
in a multi-family R-2 zoned area, according to Zettel.

The city's original proposals hoped to limit medical marijuana
caregivers to single-family residential areas and light-industrial
areas, rather then allowing them in all residential or commercial zoned areas.

The city also received a copy of a "white paper" from the Michigan
Municipal League that addresses the role of local government in the
Michigan Medical Marijuana Act.

Zettel and city attorney William Brown said the subcommittee and
council should review the document before moving forward with any proposals.

"We really want to get into this white paper," Zettel said.

By delaying the ordinance changes, the city currently has no
restrictions specifically tailored to where a medical marijuana
caregiver could grow or distribute medical marijuana outside of the
city's standard zoning regulations.

Some council members raised concerns that caregivers could open
dispensaries in the city's retail business districts before any
ordinance change is passed, which would allow them to be
grandfathered in to any ordinance made in the future.

Despite the concerns, the council refused to pass a moratorium on
medical marijuana businesses.

The first zoning amendment would have prohibited any primary
residence in a one-family residential district from having more than
one primary caregiver in the same dwelling.

Primary caregivers are individuals that have been licensed by the
state to grow and cultivate medical marijuana for up to five
patients. They can also grow medical marijuana for themselves if they
are also a medical marijuana patient.

Each caregiver can grow up to 12 marijuana plants in an enclosed,
locked facility for each one of their patients.

This ordinance addition would also only allow caregiver operations to
occur in a "primary residence," or a one-family dwelling in which the
primary caregiver would normally reside.

By including the primary residence portion within the ordinance,
committee members said out-of-town people would not be able to rent
homes in residential areas with only the purpose of conducting a
marijuana growing operation.

The second proposal would allow individual primary caregivers and
multiple primary caregivers to operate out of buildings in the city's
light industrial districts.

By restricting commercial growing operations to light industrial
zones only, the subcommittee's intent was that no distribution would
be able to take place at retail locations in the city's business districts.

Neither proposal addressed the growing or distribution of medical
marijuana in relation to the proximity of churches or schools.

Brown said a one sentence addition to each proposal could solve any
problems created by cumulative zoning. He also said he planned for
the problem but did not expect to see the two proposals on the
council's agenda so soon.

Zettel said he expects the council to be presented with an updated
ordinance to regulate medical marijuana in the city.

"There will be some delay to it, but I think it's necessary," Zettel said.