Ypsilanti Township officials debate how to regulate medical marijuana dispensaries

Ypsilanti Township officials are discussing how to regulate marijuana dispensaries.

Assistant township attorney Angie King, who crafted the proposed ordinance, and Joe Lawson, the township planning and development coordinator, discussed the measure with board members.

The proposed ordinance requires dispensaries to be 1,000 feet from churches, schools, day cares, libraries and residential zones. It also limits dispensaries to 60 plants.

“We have to address it from a zoning standpoint,” Supervisor Brenda Stumbo said. “I believe (a dispensary) helps people, but in the hands of the wrong people it is, of course, not good … Right now I have more questions than answers.”

In 2008, Michigan voters approved the use of medical marijuana. King told the board that under the law, patients and caregivers can grow up to 12 plants for five patients. Anyone who doesn't have a felony drug conviction and completes a state-run course can receive a caregiver’s card.

How dispensaries operate varies in communities throughout Michigan, King said, but they're mainly a place where patients can go to buy marijuana from a caregiver. She said in many cases, the growing operation also takes place at the dispensary. In that arrangement, growers can form collectives or associations in which they grow hundreds of plants under one roof, but remain within the personal limit per caregiver.

Township officials varied in their opinions on how a dispensary should be zoned if plants will be grown, packaged and sold there.

Lawson said the ordinance originally permitted dispensaries only in industrial-commercial zones, which largely run down the township’s eastern border. The planning commission then added language allowing dispensaries in general commercial zones, including along stretches of Michigan Avenue, Washtenaw Avenue and Ecorse Road.

Lawson said some planning commission members likened a dispensary to a pharmacy, which is allowed in commercial zones. Members also felt traveling too far to purchase pain medication could be an impediment.

Lawson said he believes dispensaries are less like pharmacies and more like the township’s industrial greenhouses in the industrial-commercial zones.

“They don’t make Motrin in the back of a CVS,” he said. “They manufacture it somewhere else, it’s packaged, then sent to the CVS. That was the thought process - how do we differentiate the two or separate those uses?”

Police Services Administrator Mike Radzik echoed Lawson's concerns.

“Pharmacies are regulated by the state and federal government … Marijuana dispensaries are a completely different animal,” he said. “What we’re doing is an attempt to take a reasonable and carefully thought approach on where they should be placed and what limits should or shouldn’t be placed on their operation.”

Radzik said state law has been essentially silent on dispensary issues.

“Statewide, it’s been left to the local jurisdictions to kind of figure it out,” he said. “There’s been a wide array of responses, ranging from attempting to zone them out of business to embracing them as a business and entrepreneurial opportunity. I think we’re trying to take a reasonable, middle-of-the-road approach in the best interest of all the stakeholders.”

Stumbo said properly zoning dispensaries will help avert problems down the road. She said a dispensary in Ypsilanti at the corner of Pearl and Hamilton streets has caused problems in that neighborhood, and the township is cautiously proceeding to avoid such issues.

“We need to make sure we learn from other communities,” she said. “What we have to do is put it in the appropriate zoning with the appropriate regulations. It’s all new to us, but it was approved by the voters, and we have to figure out how to deal with it in a professional manner, and figure out how to do what’s in the best interest of the community.”

The board will further discuss the proposed ordinance at its next regular meeting on May 18.

Tom Perkins is a freelance writer for AnnArbor.com. Reach the news desk at news@annarbor.com or 734-623-2530.