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City Council discusses marijuana regulation

The Havre City Council Ordinance Committee began discussion Tuesday night on whether medical marijuana storefront dispensaries should be allowed, banned outright or regulated through zoning.

"That is the conversation we have to have for the patients, for the providers, for anybody who wants to move to Havre and be a provider," Committee member Andrew Brekke said. "We have to settle this, in my opinion, and not let it blow up, to an extent, and try to fix it after the fact."

The issue is not whether businesses should be able to sell marijuana to patients, but whether dispensaries should be able to advertise through signage that they are a medical marijuana provider.

Brekke said city officials were recently contacted by a Great Falls dispensary about what the city's regulations are regarding storefront dispensaries.

There are currently no such restrictions in place and Brekke said that is what spurred the discussion.

"I think it is incumbent upon us to have this conversation and figure out what we want to do," he said.

The website for the National Council of State Legislatures says Montana is one of 28 states that, along with the District of Columbia and the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico and Guam, have in place legal medical marijuana programs.

Montana voters approved a ballot initiative in 2004 legalizing the sale, possession and use of medical marijuana.

Its growth exploded in 2009, mushrooming to more than 30,000 legal users and 4,800 providers in the state.

Brekke said that to get a hold on the number of providers, cities held hearings and went through legal processes in 2010. Many cities ended up putting in place moratoriums on dispensaries.

Legislation passed during the 2011 put in place restrictions on providers to such an extent zoning was no longer necessary, Brekke said.

However a ballot initiative that passed in November that removed some restrictions on the state's medical marijuana program and legislation passed by state lawmakers during the 2017 legislative session is sparking discussion in many Montana cities including Great Falls, Butte, Helena and Missoula.

Brekke said neither the Legislature nor the 2016 initiative said local governments can get between a patient and a provider when it comes to medical marijuana, but under the initiative and the legislation the city retains the ability to decide whether they should have storefront dispensaries or put in place regulations, like cities do with any business.

Billings in May passed an ordinance outright banning storefront dispensaries. In Bozeman storefront dispensaries are limited to 20 and then they have pretty straight-forward zoning regulations about where the storefronts can be located, Brekke said. Other providers can not have signage.

John Zumbrun, a medical marijuana patient for nearly nine years who was at the meeting, asked where a patient is supposed to meet with their provider.

Brekke said the Billings ordinance said a provider and patient can meet by appointment.

Havre Police Chief Gabe Matosich said he is against storefronts, saying he is worried they could lead to an increase in crime.

"There is a whole ripple effect that comes from it," Matosich said.

C.J. Reichelt of the Tri-Agency Safe Trails Task Force said such signage could make dispensaries a target for robberies and burglaries, especially since so many do business using cash.

"It shows someone the place where they could go and get their marijuana or get their cash or whatnot," Reichelt said.

Kim Faechner, owner of Green ReLeaf, a storefront dispensary on Second Street West in Havre, said other businesses could also then be targets.

"Any covenience store, you know there is a lot of cash in the drawer," she said.

Faechner said her dispensary has a sign.

"It's not in your face, it's not a huge marijuana leaf or anything," she said.

Ada Brekke said pharmacies have big signs that could also make them targets for robbery.

"It just seems like the same thing to me," she said.

Matosich said he is worried about the message such advertising could send to children.

"We are marketing and we are advertising to our youth and what we are seeing is children at a very young age are into marijuana, are into meth," Matosich said.

Committee member Caleb Hutchins said cigarettes and alcohol are also advertised and wondered what the difference was.

"If we were to talk about banning all three of those advertisements in one stroke at least it would be consistent," he said.

Mayor Tim Solomon said personally he is against storefront dispensaries, adding that it could jeopardize federal grants the city applies for.

When applying for federal grants, he said the city is agreeing to abide by federal law under which medical marijuana is not legal.

"I think the general public don't want to see it. They don't have a problem with you running your operation but they don't want to advertise it," Solomon said.

Brekke said the committee will do more research on what other cities have done and the issue will be discussed at the next committee meeting in September.

 

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