Ironwood considers regulating marijuana caregivers

By ZACHARY MARANO

zmarano@yourdailyglobe.com

Ironwood — The city of Ironwood planning commission’s zoning ordinance revision is still not ready to be approved as discussions continued at a combined work session with planning commission and the city commission on Monday.

The main purpose of Monday’s meeting was to discuss options for the regulation of medical marijuana caregivers through the zoning ordinance. Director of Community Development Tom Bergman said that two concerns regarding caregivers often came up in their discussions.

“That primary concern, of course, is odor. That seems to be the thing we hear the most about. We hear about it in residential areas. We hear about it in commercial areas. It’s something that’s pretty universal throughout the community — not for all caregivers, but there are some that is an issue with,” Bergman said.

“Another concern is vacant storefronts in the downtown, as well as odors in the downtown. That came up as a big concern of the group,” he continued.

Bergman said that they could have provisions in the ordinance for the medical marijuana caregivers who are already operating in the city and a somewhat different set of regulations for any new caregivers who come to the area in the future.

Bergman said that, in previous discussions, the committees agreed to include provisions in the zoning ordinance that would allow only new caregivers in the rural-residential and industrial districts. He said that the odor and blight would be regulated. For example, if the caregiver has a blighted, dilapidated structure, they may lose their ability to secure a license or a permit to operate a caregiver.

This would prohibit new caregivers from operating outside rural-residential and industrial districts, but Bergman said that doesn’t necessarily mean the caregivers who are already in other districts would automatically go away. He said that they would need another, different type of ordinance to regulate these caregivers.

“That’s where the non-zoning police power ordinance comes into play. It doesn’t regulate land use. It doesn’t say you can do this here, you can do this there. Non-zoning police power says for this type of activity, these are the regulations you have to meet,” Bergman said.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean that the people in the R1 district, we can say you have to go away, but if you’re here, you have to meet those requirements. We basically have a mirrored ordinance that was the same requirements that are underneath the zoning ordinance in those general requirements that are for medical marijuana. We would take those same requirements and put them in this non-zoning police power ordinance as well. And so, they would have to meet all those requirements,” Bergman said.

These regulations would be enforced through a complaint-based system, Bergman said. He said that when a public nuisance is reported by the neighbors, the Ironwood Public Safety Department would come to make sure that the caregiver is following the regulations in the police power ordinance.

Board member Jim Mildren said that they would need to be some self-identification process where the caregivers who started operating in the community before the zoning ordinance revision could prove they have the right to be “grandfathered” into other districts.

The question of how to enforce the non-zoning police power ordinance on the caregivers operating in the downtown commercial district was also raised during the discussion. Bergman said that he would consider this for the next meeting.

“One thing that’s unique about the C2 district, it’s not like a residential district where the direct neighbors, people within three or four houses, if there’s a nuisance there, that group of people is experiencing it. If there’s a nuisance in the downtown, everybody in the community is experiencing it, because they’re all utilizing the downtown,” Bergman said.

Bergman said that any further changes to the zoning and police power ordinances would require more public hearings.