HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WAFF) – Huntsville City leaders voted to keep future medical marijuana dispensaries within the confines of the medical district on Thursday night.
“When I think of the Medical District, it’s a very small area, right?” said District 2′s David Little. “Generally, where is a spot that is in the medical district that a dispensary can be put?”
Future dispensaries would have to be 1000 feet from daycares and schools and more than 300ft from the nearest dispensary. Cultivation sites would have to be 1000 feet from residential districts, with testing labs needing to be 500 feet from residential districts.
The thing that worries District 1 Councilman Devyn Keith the most is where the economic landscape would be years down the line for applicants who are late to join the market.
“If we make this decision today, in my view, you are redlining commercially some places and you’re increasing the property value of other places through real governmental intervention,” he said. “In five years, you have less places that are worth a lot more and the monopoly is done by the local business that got in first. That’s redlining.”
So far 37 applicants have already applied for dispensary locations.
“The companies applying for these licenses are going to have to list all of their proposed dispensing sites on an application that’s due December 30 and that can be technically amended if there are certain extenuating circumstances up through March 3,” Keith said.
If Huntsville City Council did not pass the ordinance tonight there would have been no regulations for medical marijuana heading into the new year.
In the end, Huntsville City Council voted to keep medical marijuana in one district along Governor’s Drive. However, other councilmembers see the future as an opportunity to work through their disagreements in future meetings.
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