The mayor on dispensaries

Under Bernero’s proposal, dispensaries would be allowed in professional office, local shopping, commercial, business, wholesale and industrially zoned areas of the city. Information from the City Clerk’s Office indicates that two of the 41 dispensaries are not in those zones.

But a major component of Bernero’s proposal says that any existing businesses that don’t comply with zoning requirements have up to a year to move, Deputy Chief of Staff Randy Hannan said.

“The intent is that businesses currently in operation would have a year to come into compliance with the ordinance,” he said.

Hannan could not comment on how to decide which business would have to move if two of them are within 500 feet of each other. City Attorney Brig Smith, whose office drafted the ordinance, could not be reached for comment.

An ordinance surfaced at a May 5 Public Safety Committee meeting — which was drafted by the City Attorney’s Office with input from Councilwoman Carol Wood — that proposes to limit medical marijuana dispensaries to industrially zoned areas of the city and says nothing about grandfathering in 37 dispensaries that are not located in those zones.

Bernero has said that he hopes City Council members get behind his vision as it is discussed in committee. Based on the City Charter, Bernero can have ordinances drafted and present them to Council members, but he can’t introduce them to the full Council for adoption.

Bernero’s plans “wouldn’t create one section that says this is where all the medical marijuana is going to be,” he said in an interview. “I think that’s the wrong way to go.”

 “I’m trying to take a more reasoned approach. I’m hoping the Carol Wood approach is rejected by the majority of the Council. I’m hoping we have progressive voices on Council who are going to be heard,” Bernero said. “Hers would create one area of the city (where medical marijuana could be sold).”

Bernero said the public perception of medical marijuana and dispensaries needs to evolve.

“There are those that want to criminalize any and all marijuana use. I think things are evolving. I hope we recognize the damage we have caused with this just-say-no approach involving marijuana — the criminals we’re creating and so on,” he said. “I think those that say we want to put it in a certain section, we want to keep it over here, I think they’re part of the problem. I’d rather have it out of the shadows, out of the neighborhoods, out of the back alleys and in a storefront where it can be regulated, inspected.”

When Bernero was asked about questions surrounding the legality of dispensaries, he said that while he’s not a lawyer, it seems like they should be allowed.

“Are dispensaries illegal? I don’t understand how you can have medical marijuana as people voted for without some system of growing and dispensing it,” he said. “It’s like saying you can have soda pop but you have to make it at home.”