BOZEMAN APPROVES TEMPORARY MEDICAL MARIJUANA RULES

As of Thursday afternoon, no new medical marijuana businesses will be
allowed in Bozeman within 1,000 feet of a school.

And any of the five businesses that have already obtained business
licenses from the city cannot accept any new patients, which medical
marijuana providers say could force them to move out of the city.

The Bozeman City Commission voted 3-1 during a special meeting on
Thursday to adopt an interim ordinance that places temporary zoning
restrictions on medical marijuana businesses.

"It's a temporary freeze," Commissioner Chris Mehl said. "But we think
it's important to put this in place expeditiously."

With the temporary rules now in place, city officials plan to draft
permanent rules over the next four months for where medical marijuana
can be grown, sold and used.

Bozeman is among several cities across Montana considering how to
regulate medical marijuana.

In Kalispell, city officials took up the issue after a marijuana
business opened half a block away from an elementary school and across
the street from a park.

Medical marijuana providers at Thursday's Bozeman commission meeting
said banning the five licensed shops from expanding their businesses
will force them to relocate.

Robert Carpenter, of A Kinder Caregiver, Inc., said that's unfair.
Those businesses likely just made large investments in new facilities
and now they can't expand to get the revenue they need to pay for them.

He said those businesses followed the rules and went through the
proper steps to get a permit from the city and operate in a
professional manner. Now, it is possible that providers simply may opt
not to tell the city where they are.

"It causes us to go back into the shadows, if anything," Carpenter
said.

The five businesses already licensed in the city have been open about
their locations. But they don't have to be. Under state law,
information about medical marijuana providers is confidential, except
to police.

Commissioner Carson Taylor had proposed removing the condition that
providers can't add more patients, but his motion failed.

Mehl said medical marijuana has been permitted in Montana for six
years and there's no reason providers can't wait a few months for
rules to be established.

Commissioner Sean Becker voted against the temporary regulations. Like
Taylor, he also wanted to remove the condition about adding more
patients, but because none of the other commissioners supported it, it
would have resulted in a tie. Mayor Jeff Krauss was absent.

A "school" is defined in the interim ordinance as any public or
private K-12 school or vocational school. Commissioners opted not to
include Montana State University and daycares in the definition.

The school-zone restriction is on top of existing zoning requirements
for businesses in Bozeman, which allow the sale of medical marijuana
where retail stores are allowed, but not in homes. The city does not
allow medical offices as a home occupation.

Growing medical marijuana would be allowed in areas zoned
residential-suburban, where agricultural uses are allowed.

Montana voters passed an initiative legalizing marijuana for medical
use in 2004. But growers kept their operations out of sight until the
federal government announced in October that people following their
state's laws won't be prosecuted.

Patients can legally grow up to six plants at their
home.

Providers can grow six plans for every patient they have.