If the City and Borough of Juneau marijuana committee gets its way, the city will require all marijuana businesses to obtain a $50 local license in addition to the state license that is already required.<\/p>\n
The committee Thursday night moved an ordinance amending the Land Use Code that will \u201cprovide for the regulation of marijuana use and marijuana establishments\u201d to the planning commission. The planning commission will review the ordinance before it is heard before the full Assembly for consideration.<\/p>\n
The pot committee amended the ordinance extensively before finally deciding to move it along \u2014 the local licensure requirement was a hotly contested item. Debate broke out between committee members after Maria Gladziszewski, an Assembly member on the committee, moved to set the fee for the local license at $50. The debate was not so much about the cost as it was about the fact that the city would require a license at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would object to a license in general and the $50 fee,\u201d committee member Bill Peters said, voicing his objection to Gladziszewski\u2019s motion, which passed 4\u20133. Committee members Dennis Watson and Debbie White, who also sits on the Assembly, were the other \u201cnay\u201d votes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think if we start requiring a part license for a part industry it will snowball,\u201d White said. \u201cI\u2019m against it altogether. It\u2019s just big government. That\u2019s all it is.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gladziszewski and committee chair Jesse Kiehl, another Assembly member, argued that the change isn\u2019t about overregulating, but about giving the city more control. Kiehl argued that the city law department had \u201ctightly controlled and closely tailored\u201d the ordinance to ensure that it was \u201csnowball\u201d proof. <\/p>\n
Gladziszewski, Kiehl and Mayor Mary Becker, also a committee member, agreed that requiring a local license would give the city more teeth in dealing with businesses that violate city code because the city can pull their licenses. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d have to go to the state, as Ms. Gladziszewski said in a previous meeting, and say, \u2018Mother, may I?\u2019 to enforce our laws,\u201d Kiehl said. \u201cIf we find somebody who is not carding 20-year-olds, I don\u2019t want to have to go to the state and say \u2018please.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Community Development Department Planner Chrissy McNally pointed out during the meeting that the CDD actually doesn\u2019t have an enforcement agent on staff who could potentially revoke a marijuana business\u2019 license. Those committee members who voted \u2018nay\u2019 argued requiring a local license would create a need for that position, or as White put it, \u201canother level of bureaucracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Committee member Mike Satre, who said he was torn on this issue, was the swing vote that ended the licensure discussion. Thursday was the last meeting for both Watson and Satre, whose terms on the committee are finished. <\/p>\n
Thursday marked the pot committee\u2019s last regular meeting before the city\u2019s moratorium on sales of marijuana is lifted at the start of 2016.<\/p>\n
Before it ended, the committee also discussed sign regulations and recommended that the planning commission consider requiring marijuana businesses to post signage warning patrons of the potential dangers of marijuana and informing them where they are allowed to use and possess it.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If the City and Borough of Juneau marijuana committee gets its way, the city will require all marijuana businesses to obtain a $50 local license in addition to the state license that is already required. The committee Thursday night moved an ordinance amending the Land Use Code that will \u201cprovide for the regulation of marijuana […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-28624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28624"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=28624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}