Weekly Update 4/5/21

This week's updates include a few regarding marijuana-related business, as well as an important update about public input.

The City Council had a lengthy discussion about proposed revisions to the marijuana ordinance. Many of the revisions are meant to tighten up the language in the ordinance and clarify the processes in place. Discussion also centered around limiting the number of Host Community Agreements for retailers to the number of available retail licenses, establishing a 1,000 ft buffer zone around our social equity licensees, and having a separate discussion and creating a new ordinance to address marijuana delivery specifically. These revisions will now go back to the Law Department to be drafted.

LMCC's request for an amendment to their Host Community Agreement at 30 Sherwood Drive to add manufacturing and delivery to their operations there, in addition to cultivation, was approved.

On public input, the City Council accepted the recommendation of the Law Department to transition to in-person public input with a pre-registration system. This is a HUGE win because "going back to normal" would have meant no standing agenda item for public input. People will have differing views about whether this is too much or too little, but I think it is a good compromise and it is surely more than we had before the pandemic.