The latest fight over marijuana in Detroit hits the polls on Nov. 7. On an otherwise pretty spare ballot there will be two questions put to voters that arrived via petition initiatives run by a group called Citizens for Sensible Cannabis Reform.
Neither of the proposals, as they appear on the ballot, are particularly clear about what they enact. The first one is called "an initiative to enact a medical marijuana facilities ordinance." The second appears as "a proposal to amend the Detroit zoning ordinance, chapter 61 of the Detroit city code, consistent with the Medical Marijuana Facilities Licensing Act."
STATE BY STATE: Michigan Cannabis News
The first proposal does several things, but most significantly it cuts the distance a provisioning center can be from parks, day care centers, liquor stores, churches and other provisioning centers from 1,000 feet, as currently required, to 500 feet, and allows them to stay open an hour later to 9 p.m.
CSCR had to take the city to court in order to put it on the ballot. The second proposal is for Detroit to opt in to the new state law, and it would allow growers and secure transporters (two of the categories allowed by state medical marijuana facilities law) to operate in Detroit's M1-5 industrial districts.
The general impact of these proposals is to pull back some of the regulations the city put on marijuana facilities. That 1,000-feet thing pretty much makes facilities be located far from anywhere that people actually go. There are other tweaks in there but that's the basic intention.
