The Mayor’s Office is no longer requesting a moratorium on the establishment of medical marijuana facilities and has dropped a key regulation aimed at growers and processors of the product, city councilors learned Wednesday.
Nick Doctor, chief of economic development and policy for the city, began his presentation to councilors by telling them the city has decided to pull a proposed zoning code amendment that would have required medical marijuana growing and processing facilities to be at least 1,000 feet from residential areas. The primary reason for the proposed spacing requirement, Doctor explained, was to protect residential areas from the odor the facilities could potentially emit. But after meeting with industry officials, code enforcement staff and others, the city decided to remove the spacing requirements from its proposed zoning code regulations.
“At this point, we think some of the regulations that we will have in that zoning code that require ventilation and other protections … as well as some of nuisance ordinances we already have on the books will address the odor issue,” Doctor said.
The city’s proposed land-use regulations, especially the spacing requirement, had been opposed by some people in the medical marijuana industry. To give city councilors more time to address those concerns — and to ensure that businesses were not established before the city’s land-use regulations were in place — the Mayor’s Office proposed its moratorium.
As initially presented, it would have lasted no more than 90 days, or until the city’s zoning code regulations were in place, whichever is less.
But with the controversial spacing requirements off the table, councilors on Wednesday questioned Doctor about the need to act on the moratorium. Doctor said he did not believe there was the same sense of urgency to approve the moratorium. Asked whether the Mayor’s Office request for the moratorium still stands, Doctor said: “I would say the request is not there.”
The City Council was scheduled to vote on the moratorium Wednesday night, but pulled the item from the agenda. The city has no plans to change its proposal that medical marijuana dispensaries be at least 1,000 feet apart.
The city’s proposed regulations make no mention of spacing requirements between medical marijuana dispensaries and schools because that issue is covered in state law. State Question 788 prohibits a medical marijuana dispensary from being within 1,000 feet of a public or private school entrance.
City officials have yet to determine whether medical marijuana businesses will be required to obtain permits from the city. During its Wednesday afternoon meeting, the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission unanimously voted in favor of sending the proposed medical marijuana zoning code amendments to the City Council.
The draft is expected to come before the City Council — which has final authority — for a first reading on Oct. 24. Regulations over medical marijuana processing facilities remained a point of debate at the planning commission meeting.
Susan Miller, director of land development services for Indian Nations Council of Governments, said the best fit in a “worst-case scenario” is for processors to be categorized as high-impact manufacturing and intermediate impact by special exception.
“We’re still trying to get our arms around this one a bit,” said Miller, who presented the proposal.
Ron Durbin, an attorney representing Green the Vote, told commissioners that is a flawed recommendation. He said there are popular extraction methods that aren’t a concern for creating noxious gasses or explosion hazards that should be considered as light-industrial impact.
He told the commissioners that it’s “too early” to move the draft onward when INCOG is “still trying to get their arms around it.”
Durbin, a collaborator on model medical marijuana legislation under review by state lawmakers, also took issue with a requirement that growers be indoors. “There’s overreach here that I don’t think is allowed under state law,” Durbin said.
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