Lakewood Just Says No to Marijuana Businesses

LAKEWOOD, OH — Ohio's medical marijuana law goes into effect on Sept. 8, and some cities, including Lakewood, are already taking measures to delay things while they look into how to implement the new law.

According to Cleveland.com, Lakewood, Beavercreek, Troy and Piqua each have six-month moratoriums on business licenses for marijuana businesses, and other cities are working on doing the same.

Kent Scarrett, executive director of the Ohio Municipal League, told Cleveland.com that communities wish that lawmakers would have involved city leaders more before drafting the bill.

"There's a lot of unknowns when this gets rolled out," Scarrett said. "The state made this change but this change is coming to our communities."

While the law goes into effect on Sept. 8, not a whole lot will actually happen on that day, reports Cleveland.com. Ohio cities should focus on making sure they are prepared when business licenses are issued, which most likely won't happen for another year.

Additionally, there are many other considerations cities and townships need to look at before marijuana business licenses are issued. Cleveland.com points out the following:

The law prohibits a cultivator, processor, retail dispensary or testing laboratory from being located within 500 feet of a school, church, public library, public playground or public park.

Municipal corporations and townships may limit or prohibit the number of medical marijuana businesses within their borders but can't limit research done at a state university, medical center or private research facility.

Townships can also regulate the location of medical marijuana businesses in unincorporated areas of the township, but counties cannot.

So, are temporary bans on medical marijuana business licensing the right thing to do? Aaron Marshall, spokesman for the national organization Marijuana Policy Project is concerned that temporary bans will limit patients' access to medical marijuana but says he understands that city officials want to do their due diligence.

"With so many details to be worked out in the future we'd prefer folks take a deep breath and not act on this issue right now," Marshall told Cleveland.com.

One Ohio city has an outright ban on all marijuana operations — Hamilton in Butler county. New Philadelphia is currently working on the same type of outright ban.

Lakewood is looking beyond the marijuana business licensing process and is also enacting a moratorium on issuing change-of-use and occupancy permits permits for the next six months. This additional step could actually save potential businesses headaches if future restrictions on a location would exclude it from use.

Lakewood's chief assistant law director, Jennifer Swallow, told Cleveland.com that city officials will be looking at zoning laws over the next few month to determine if any additional restrictions are required in addition to updating the criminal code to accomadate medial marijuana.

"It's important to make sure we take our time to look at this and how it's going to affect the community as a whole and make sure the right regulations are in place from the beginning and to be able to plan," she said.

For more, visit cleveland.com

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