7 medical pot stores could come to city
Orlando could soon adopt rules allowing as many as seven medical marijuana dispensaries to set up shop in the city, a move an advocate for the drug said might be premature.
Today, an Orlando planning board will consider a slate of recommendations, which, if adopted by the City Council, would end a moratorium imposed in July on medical pot stores.
The rules would prohibit dispensaries from opening within 200 feet of homes, 1,000 feet of schools or a mile of each other, and would bar them from selling alcohol or allowing patients to consume marijuana on-site.
City planners also have proposed limiting the number of dispensaries in the city to seven, matching the number of companies licensed by the state to cultivate and sell the drug to Florida
patients.
“We’re just basically dipping our toe into allowing these types of facilities in our city, in reasonable locations that will allow reasonable access to medical cannabis,” said Chief Planner Jason Burton.
Orlando was one of several local governments, along with Orange County, Winter Garden and Apopka, that adopted temporary bans on medical marijuana operations last year. Orange County is likely to discuss extending its moratorium this month, a spokeswoman said. In November, voters approved a constitutional amendment allowing doctors to recommend full-strength marijuana for a variety of ailments. However, lawmakers in Tallahassee are still grappling with how to regulate the emerging industry.
Because regulations for medical marijuana are still up in the air, Orlando’s decision to move forward with local rules could be coming too soon, said Ben Pollara, executive director of Florida for Care, an advocacy group that was part of the campaign to legalize medical pot.
“For the most part, it [the moratorium] was understandable in the context of, ‘We’ve got to see how this shakes out.’ That was logical at the time,” he said. “They’re now coming back to lift the moratorium, and it still hasn’t shaken out.”
Pollara also questioned the wisdom of limiting the number of dispensaries to seven. While that’s currently the number of licensed cultivators in the state, the number could change quickly, he said.
He also noted Hillsborough County last month opted against a plan to limit the number of dispensaries there to 13, in light of concerns that such a policy would favor already-licensed medical marijuana businesses and limit patients’ access to the drug.
Burton said Orlando’s planners proposed limiting the number of dispensaries to avoid the city becoming Central Florida’s go-to market for medical marijuana, as other local governments have been slower in crafting regulamum tions to allow marijuana sellers.
“It’s a new and untested market,” he said. “We’re being as reasonable, but also as conservative, as we could possibly be.”
The recommendations also include requiring dispensaries to provide security equipment, including alarms; prohibiting them from keeping unprocessed cannabis on site; and limiting their business hours to 8 a.m. through 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
If adopted, the policy would classify dispensaries as “light retail,” allowing them to set up in most commercial areas in the city.
Burton said hospitals with at least 100 beds would also be allowed to dispense medical marijuana and would not be counted in the seven-dispensary maxi- proposed by Orlando planners.
Some of those seven slots could already be spoken for. The city approved three dispensary locations for a low-THC cannabis product before establishing its dispensary ban; they would potentially be grandfathered into the new rules.
That includes Knox Medical’s facility at 1901 N. Orange Ave. in Ivanhoe Village, which is expected to open in the coming weeks. The 2,600-square-foot shop a half-mile south of Florida Hospital’s main campus plans to offer delivery and in-store purchases.