If you want to open a medical-marijuana dispensary in the City of Kalamazoo, you’ll have to wait.
The city says it has heard from lots of people who would like to grow and sell the drug as allowed under new state laws. They would need both state and local approval to go into business.
But the state does not plan to start reviewing applications until around December of 2017. And City Attorney Clyde Robinson says Kalamazoo is just beginning to parse the new laws on medical marijuana. Critically, the City Commission has not yet voted to allow dispensaries and other businesses.
Robinson says if Kalamazoo does decide to permit them, it will write its own local policy.
“But it’s not something that’s going to be done overnight. And we’re not taking any applications, for people who want to get first in line. We’re not going to do anything until we have a system and process,” he told the Kalamazoo City Commission Monday night.
Though the new laws are supposed to clarify the drug’s legal status, Robinson says the actual text is complicated and, in some places, inconsistent.
“I’m in conversation with other municipal attorneys and already there’s some questions as to, ‘did the legislature forget that what the legislature said here, they didn’t say over here?’” he says.
Robinson says he hopes to have proposals in front of the city commission before December of next year, when the state application process opens.
