| Graphic: ePodunk |
| Lincoln Park, MI will allow the cultivation of medical marijuana, but not in residential neighborhoods. |
Licensed persons can now grow marijuana in certain sections of Lincoln Park, Michigan, according to an ordinance adopted Monday by the City Council.
Council members voted 6-1 for the ordinance, reports Nate Stemen at The Southgate News-Herald. Councilman Thomas Murphy was all alone in opposing the measure.
The ordinance restricts the growing of marijuana for medical use to an “industrial part of the city” that runs along John A. Papalas Drive from Southfield Road to Outer Drive.
An additional ordinance relating to growing marijuana, requiring growers to be registered with the state and licensed with the city, was also adopted.
| Photo: City of Lincoln Park, MI |
| Mayor Frank Vaslo: “Right now our indications are, and as it should be, that the federal government is not going to get involved in this issue” |
Marijuana growing licenses will expire at midnight on the first Tuesday in May after issuance. The fee to obtain a license was set at $50.
The approval process could take about 90 days in order to obtain proper registration and license, according to Mayor Frank Vaslo.
The mayor said council members took the action to keep “grow activities” out of residential neighborhoods.
“With the law right now, if we took no action, any individual could grow marijuana in their home,” Vaslo said. “I don’t think any of us want to turn our neighborhoods into grow centers.”
He said the new regulations send the growing activities to the industrial park, where they have to have proper lights, security and protection.
Mayor Vaslo said that he and some council members wanted to be proactive rather than reactive “because in some of these communities that take no action, the caregivers are going to be grandfathered into these neighborhoods.”
Murphy voted against the ordinance, saying the council rushed into it. “Most cities haven’t jumped onto this bandwagon yet and I think we would have done well to hold off on it,” Murphy said, claiming the council’s action put the city in a position to be sued by the federal government, which doesn’t any use of marijuana as legal.
“There is a federal law that says to have marijuana is illegal,” Mayor Vaslo said, “and right now our indications are, and as it should be, that the federal government is not going to get involved in this issue.”
There are no dispensaries in the city, so marijuana cannot be sold, only grown, according to Vaslo.
According to the mayor, 71 percent of Lincoln Park voters and 63 percent of Michigan voters statewide approved medical marijuana in 2008.