City lifts medical marijuana pause

The Hot Springs Board of Directors adopted an ordinance repealing the 90-day moratorium on issuing business licenses for medical marijuana dispensaries and cultivation facilities during a special-called meeting Tuesday.

Adopted by unanimous voice vote, the ordinance lifts the moratorium the board effected last month in response to the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment of 2016, or Amendment 98. The citizen-initiated amendment makes the regulated medical use of marijuana legal under state law.

Assistant City Manager/City Clerk Lance Spicer told the board Tuesday

that the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission’s promulgation last month of final rules implementing the law made the moratorium unnecessary. The board imposed the moratorium out of concern that the city’s application process for medical marijuana business licenses would conflict with state rules.

Tuesday’s action includes an emergency clause that removes the moratorium immediately. Amendment 98 prohibits local governments from enacting ordinances that would keep dispensaries and cultivation facilities from operating in their jurisdictions.

The board agreed to consider a resolution supporting the establishment of medical marijuana facilities in Hot Springs at its next regular meeting July 18. District 4 Director Larry Williams introduced the resolution, he said, to show that the city isn’t opposed to a medical marijuana enterprise operating in the corporate limits.

“The unintentional consequence of our moratorium was to send a signal to certain people that Hot Springs is not going to do this,” Williams told the board. “If you wanted to make maybe a stronger statement or maybe to combat that perception, you might want to entertain (the resolution).”