Town hall meeting set for medical marijuana ordinances

By Charles Sercombe
The public will have a second opportunity to let city officials know if Hamtramck should allow medical marijuana dispensaries and grow facilities to operate here.
“Upon receiving numerous additional questions about the city’s proposed medical marijuana ordinance, we wanted to provide residents and business owners an opportunity to have any concerns addressed,” said City Manager Kathy Angerer in a press release.
“It is important to the administration that their voices are heard and the proposed ordinance be properly understood.”
A couple dozen residents, mostly from the Bengali and Yemeni communities, attended a city council meeting a couple of weeks ago and said they were against allowing these operations to operate in Hamtramck.
At that meeting the city council was preparing to set a public hearing to adopt ordinances that would license and regulate dispensaries and grow operations.
Because of the outcry, the council decided to hold a town hall meeting this coming Tuesday (Oct. 30) at the public library (2360 Caniff) at 6 p.m.
While these operations are allowed by state law, each city can decide to opt out of allowing them to set up shop.
Hamtramck officials have been working on ordinances that regulate these businesses for several years, but only recently began to earnestly look into the matter.
Those who object fear marijuana will get into the hands of minors and the operations will attract crime.
Some city officials say those concerns are exaggerated and that the businesses will bring in needed additional tax revenue.
At least two councilmembers, Saad Almasmari and Fadel Al-Marsoumi, have said they are opposed to these businesses. Both said anyone who is allowed to purchase medical marijuana can go to any number of dispensaries in nearby Detroit or the suburbs.
Others have said Hamtramck residents should be able to shop locally and not have to catch a ride or drive out of the city to obtain their legal medical marijuana.
The city council is expected to vote on whether to move forward with adopting the ordinances at its next council meeting in November. At this point is appears there are enough votes to pass the ordinances, but things could change in the coming weeks due to public pressure.

Oct. 26, 2018