Draft marijuana zoning goes to planning board

A draft zoning ordinance for medical marijuana businesses will be presented to the Whitefish City-County Planning Board during a work session following their regular meeting Thursday, Feb. 18 (tonight), at 6 p.m.

The board has no major items on its agenda for both this meeting and the next, March 18. The hope is to give the board enough time to finalize zoning for marijuana businesses and forward it right away to the city council.

The explosive growth of the industry since the Montana Medical Marijuana Act went into effect in 2004, coupled with concerns about impacts to schools and neighborhoods by public use of marijuana, illegal drug sales, intoxicated drivers and crime, have driven the zoning process.

The council approved an urgency ordinance in December prohibiting medical marijuana businesses in Whitefish and within one mile of the city limits while city staff figured out how to zone such businesses. An exception was made for home occupations with three or less patients.

An urgency ordinance can be approved without a public hearing before the planning board and is limited to six months, but can be renewed. The council's action, however, alarmed some medical marijuana industry representatives, and one, The Healing Center's Mike Smith, threatened to sue the city.

Instead, Smith and 10 others addressed the planning board during a Jan. 21 work session, including four doctors, three patients, six caregivers and one attorney who is also a judge, a caregiver and a patient. That work session was continued to Feb. 18.

To help kick off the process, city planning director David Taylor drafted a zoning ordinance based on his research and input from people in the medical marijuana industry. The draft ordinance divides the industry into three business categories — caregivers who typically work out of their homes, dispensaries that sell marijuana like a store, and larger-scale growing operations.

The draft calls for allowing dispensaries to be a permitted use in the city's Business Service District — there is currently only one, in the "doughnut" area at Highway 40 and Dillon Road — and in the Casino District, which is along the west side of the U.S. 93 strip between 13th and 15th streets.

Dispensaries could be established on a case-by-case basis with a conditional-use permit in the city's four commercial and one industrial zones as well as a specific county-zoned SAG-15 area — on both sides of U.S. 93 from Highway 40 for one mile south.

The draft ordinance also provides "performance standards' that address buffering from schools, libraries, churches and playgrounds, if uses or advertising at a dispensary are visible to the public, safety and security plans, customer age limits, banning sales of medicine or paraphernalia to people without state-issued cards, and parking needs.

Taylor estimates "dozens or more" caregivers are already operating as a home occupation in the Whitefish area — mostly "under the radar." He said it's not the city's intention to over regulate them "unless traffic or other impacts violate the residential character of a neighborhood."

Noting that caregivers have said many of their patients only show up once or twice a month, and that more frequent customers will likely go to a dispensary, Taylor suggested reviewing caregivers "just like we do with other home occupations' and limiting them to 10-20 patients "as a discussion point."

As for the larger grow operations, Taylor suggested locating them in the city's agricultural and country-residential zones "as long as there is no dispensary on site." He noted that most businesses grow marijuana in a separate location from their dispensaries "for security reasons."

Whitefish police chief Bill Dial weighed in on several points in the draft. The 200-foot buffer around schools is only half a city block, he said, and should be increased to 500 feet. He also expressed concerns about people consuming marijuana at dispensaries.

Taylor, however, noted that on-site consumption is common at medical marijuana dispensaries — customers sample products and caregivers who work there take medicine they need during the day. He noted that the draft ordinance "makes it clear that each dispensary is responsible for the well being of their patients if they leave in an impaired state, much like bartenders are in drinking establishments."