KALAMAZOO (WKZO AM/FM) — The City of Kalamazoo will permit medical marijuana businesses to locate in the city, but not before making applicants jump through a lot of hoops.
The City Commission will receive the proposed ordinance changes and schedule a public hearing for April 2nd this evening.
Attorney Devin Loker, who specializes in the field, says by severely limiting where they can locate and by banning the stacking of licenses…Kalamazoo will be at a competitive disadvantage with communities that are far less restrictive.
Medical Marijuana businesses will have to be located at least a thousand feet away from schools, libraries, playgrounds, parks, or public housing facility.
They have to be at least 500 feet from any existing child care center, church, recreation facility, youth center or correctional facility or drug rehab center, or any other medical marijuana facility.
They are also banned from certain neighborhood shopping areas. The City ordinance would limit one license per site. Those few remaining locations are now selling for significantly more than they were just weeks or months ago, if you can find one.
Loker says it just won’t be financially possible for a small operation or a local entrepreneur to compete with communities that have set aside entire industrial parks for medical marijuana growing operations.
Loker says unless they are able to stack licenses, and that’s to combine growing processing and dispensaries at the same location, they will never have the vertical integration they need to be as efficient and competitive as businesses that will be permitted to stack licenses in other towns.
Kalamazoo Township and Portage have already adopted similar ordinances that will likely put a serious damper on the businesses locating in those communities too.
For those who would rather not see such facilities at all in their communities, it may be just what the doctor ordered.
