Vote halts recreational marijuana for now
Warren City Council Tuesday voted unanimously to opt out of recreational marijuana by adopting an emergency ordinance.
It will be added to section 19.5 of the city’s Code of Ordinances, but council is expected to opt back in once the city actually has an ordinance governing adult use/recreational cannabis.
The emergency opt out ordinance was not on the posted City Council agenda and there was no supporting material posted in the meeting packet. Council Secretary Mindy Moore added the item at the beginning of Tuesday’s session.
A recreational marijuana ordinance is expected to be introduced in January when it is to be evaluated by the city’s Marijuana Subcommittee before coming before the City Council for a vote. The city has had a recreational cannabis moratorium in place since January 28, 2020. The city does have ordinances governing medical marijuana.
“A moratorium is not supposed to extend beyond one year,” said Moore. “If the ordinance comes before Council at its Jan. 26 meeting, that will push it to February before the ordinance is actually in place. We know there are transporters and labs operating in the city for medical mari
juana that need adult use in the long run. But we have to get our house in order. We have to stop the flurry of attestations and issuance of adult use licenses.”
Moore said the city’s administration is “secretly” signing attestations that allow recreational facilities to operate in Warren.
“The signing of these attestations goes against the council’s moratorium and is extremely disturbing,” said Council President Patrick Green.
The Marijuana Subcommittee has a meeting scheduled for Jan. 5.
The Warren City Council Committee of the Whole is to meet Jan. 11 to discuss the new recreational marijuana ordinance and it is slated to be on the regular City Council agenda Jan. 26. Once the ordinance is officially in place, council can opt back in for recreational cannabis.
“There is pending litigation on this, so in order to protect the city, this ordinance is recommended to stop attestations and a flurry of approvals without ordinance in place,” said City Council special legal counsel Jeffrey Schroder of Plunkett Cooney law firm.
Schroder said the opt- out ordinance won’t affect businesses that are already licensed and operating but will prevent the issuance of any more recreational licenses.
Mayor James Fouts said on his Facebook page he does not plan to veto the emergency opt out ordinance but that he is “cynical about the council’s true motivations in doing this.”
Moore said the council is not interested in shutting down existing marijuana operations or taking any legal action against them. However, it is invested in finding out who in the administration has been signing the attestations.
“We need to know who was involved with this,” said Green. “We can’t have someone going rogue. We need to know what punitive actions are going to be taken and a lot depends on how forthcoming the administration is going to be on this. If we are the only ones standing up to it, then we are going to stand up to it. We don’t want to penalize existing businesses but we are not going forward with this until we have all of the answers and we have a resolution.”