Kalamazoo Township approves recreational marijuana business

Cannabis

The Board of Trustees voted to opt-in for marijuana growers, processors, retailers, transporters, excess growers, event organizers and testing facilities with a 4-3 vote.

Supervisor Donald Martin and Trustees Nicolette Leigh and Steven Leuty voted against the opt-in.

Leuty said while he was impressed with the amount of time and money spent by the township in considering recreational business, he still wanted to exert an “abundance of caution.”

His hangup, he said, was not with the township’s decision to opt-in but with the state’s unpredictability.

Leuty said he fears that The Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs will come back to burn them with regulations leaving the township in a “deal with the devil.”

“We can feel confident we protected ourselves and then the devil will poke us,” he said. “LARA (Licensing and Regulatory Affairs) has a history of being arbitrary and taking state powers and ignoring local control.”

The township will accept applications for recreational business starting Saturday, Feb. 1. An annual fee of $5,000 will apply to all businesses to offset administrative and enforcement costs.

However, all applications must be submitted to the clerk’s office which is closed on weekends.

John Taylor, the owner of the medical marijuana provisioning center KKind, jokingly asked Township Manager Dexter Mitchell if he could drop his application off right at his doorstep Saturday morning so he wouldn’t have to wait.

During public comment, Taylor thanked the board for its diligent work in becoming the first municipality in Kalamazoo County to approve the recreational business. The city of Kalamazoo and Portage have not yet opted-in.

Read More at source: M Live