Port Huron, MI — The Port Huron City Council passed a marihuana ordinance at their regular meeting Monday night that allows six licenses for marihuana establishments in the city. The ordinance will allow for 3 retail locations, 1 microbusiness, a safety compliance facility, and a secure transporter. The ordinance will become effective in the first part of October.
According to Mayor Pauline Repp, there is a ballot issue going before voters in the November 3rd election that is in conflict with the ordinance passed by the City Council and would negate it if passed. The ballot initiative takes the city council out of the mix of approving what types of marihuana businesses would be allowed in the city and allows closer to 20 businesses to receive a license from the City Clerk’s office.
Repp said, “We wanted to step into this lightly. We’ve been researching it for well over a year prior to this ordinance coming forward that was put on the ballot. We’ve been doing a lot of research and certainly felt that what we should do was start slow. We also wanted to give an opportunity by only allowing so many licenses because at this point the law only allows you to have a license if you have a medical marihuana license.” She said the main reason to keep the number of licenses low at this point was so that more could be added in the future when the laws change in Michigan.
“We felt is was better for our residents to step into this a little bit and see how it goes. Then, we can tweak it and make changes. If they pass the ordinance through the ballot initiative, we can’t make any changes. It stays that way for at least two years,” said Repp.
A copy of the initiatory petition for an ordinance to authorize and regulate Marihuana Establishments and Marihuana Facilities from the City Clerk’s office is an 8 page document included in the Port Huron City Council Agenda Packet for the September 15th meeting. The petition allows for a much higher number of Marihuana licenses along with more types of businesses such as growers and processors. The document is available <HERE>.
Reporting for WGRT – Jessie Wiegand
