DEXTER: VILLAGE ONE STEP CLOSER TO APPROVING MEDICAL MARIJUANA
DISPENSARY ORDINANCE

Dexter village will soon be one of the first municipalities in
Michigan to pass comprehensive regulation dealing with medical
marijuana dispensaries.

The Village Council held a public hearing Monday on a penalty
structure for operators who violate the ordinances which will place
overlay zoning along Dan Hoey and Dexter-Ann Arbor Road, as well as
parts of Baker Road.

The overlay zoning will allow the village to corral medicinal
marijuana grow operations without having to rezone parcels or merging
the additional zoning specifications with existing zoning guidelines
for medical facilities in the village.

No one showed up to comment on the $1,000 to $3,000 civil infractions
for violating the proposed ordinances, which weren't passed this week.

The medicinal marijuana civil infractions would be by far the
harshest on the village's books, with most others being $50 charges
for noise violations and roadside dumping that cap at $250 after the
third and in all subsequent violations.

Village President Shawn Keough said that the moratorium, which ends
next month, would have to be extended "a few days"

"At some point we're going to have to extend the moratorium to meet
all of the public notices ... I don't think it should be tonight,"
Keough said. "I don't think it should be until we decide what it is
we want to do."

Village Trustee Donna Fisher, who attended a workshop in Lansing last
Thursday with fellow Trustee Jim Smith, called for village officials
to confer with law enforcement and township officials "so (village
officials) know that (they're) working towards the same goal ... that
(they) have roughly the same idea."

Community Development Manager Allison Bishop said that the village
hasn't done much to collaborate in response to Fisher asking staff
about their progress in that regard.

"I know that Scio has not really done anything, Dexter Township was
looking to permit them, Webster doesn't have any commercial
property," Bishop said. "Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti are working through
their process and Chelsea and Saline have banned it."

Fisher warned that the conference indicated that Dexter should "work
with the other entities out there" and that failing to define how
medical marijuana plays out in a given municipality is a "nightmare"
for law enforcement.

"It will be problematic if we don't have it crystal clear if there's
an overlay district," Fisher explained.

Bishop said that until Washtenaw County Sheriff Jerry Clayton or the
County Prosecutor's Office takes a position, such as Oakland County
has despite what municipalities in its jurisdiction have done
regulation-wise, the village is going it alone.

"I think everyone is trying to see what happens," she added. "It
helps that Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor have their own police force, but
we don't have that."

Fisher warned that regardless of the stance of the sheriff's office,
the panel in Lansing, including city managers, prosecuting attorneys
and representatives from various major law firms, stressed the
"importance of making certain that (the village) does nothing to make
it difficult for the (medical marijuana law)."

She told her colleagues on council that as far as the dispensary
issue goes, village officials are advised to move "really slowly" with it.

"We were one of the few groups that is this close to passing
something (with regard to dispensaries)," Fisher said. "We were told
to 'work our way through the process. 'If we wait for the states to
define this and the courts to do something nothing is going to
happen. The onus is on us."

Smith said that he though the council shouldn't "interpret something
that is not specified in the law," referring to the lack of language
addressing dispensaries the medicinal marijuana law.

"If dispensaries are at some time later authorized by courts and the
legislators you can always add that in, but why go down the road of
adding something in that isn't specified," he said. "The big point
they made (at the panel) was that the law itself was not written by
the legislators, it was written by an organization out of Washington D.C."

After discussion died down among the council and the item was set
aside until the next meeting on Feb. 28, Garden City-based
Trustworthy Holistic Caregivers owner Larry Reynolds invited the
council to visit his grow center at 5644 Hubbard Ave.

"Come see how we operate," Reynolds said during the second public
comment period at the meeting's end.

Reynold's business opened last September after Garden City passed its
own regulatory measures, and he said there have been no problems with
law enforcement or the city.

Reynold's company grows for caregivers and is not a dispensary.

"Police visit us regularly," Reynolds said proudly, adding that his
wife, a mother and church leader would operate a second location in
Dexter once the village sorts out its own regulation and the
moratorium expires.

Reynold's said that the village was wise to be proactive by
addressing the matter with regulation "before someone exploits their zoning."

He also addressed pre-conceptions about the people his company deals with.

"The average patient is in his or her late 30s to early 40s ... we
deal with people who have legitimate pain who would rather use
something other than Oxycontin and Viccodin prescribed by their doctors."