On Election Day Windham voters spoke
loudly on question one. Now that the results have been tallied, the wheels to
insure that the processes of making this happen smoothly as possible are in
motion. This past Tuesday Council members discussed the next steps going
forward with the Marijuana Legalization Act. That step is establishing an
ordinance.
Town Manager Tony Plante presented
council members with an updated draft drawn up by the town’s attorney. “Our
attorney has been working also on Augusta and Bangor and is making the
ordinance’s the same for all three,” he summarized.
Voters approved the Marijuana
Legalization Act at the last election. But this, if adopted by the council,
would impose a moratorium effective November 8th to give the town time to deal
with issues related to the location of retail marijuana establishments as
written into the Marijuana Legalization Act. As the town manager continued to
explain, “When the law goes into effect in January 2017 it will be legal to
possess recreational marijuana. What this ordinance will do is deal with the
location and operation of disbursement establishments and nothing else.”
To elaborate Plante said, “This isn’t
saying that they (establishments) can or cannot be located in Windham, or under
what conditions. It’s simply saying that we need some time to sort through what
health and public safety issues may be involved; similar to what Windham went
through with the legalization of medical marijuana a number of years ago.”
“The
town does have some provisions in its land use ordinance that does deal with
the location of dispensaries. We don’t have anything in our ordinance right now
that deals with the types of establishments envisioned by the Marijuana
Legalization Act. So again, this would give the council and the town time to
work on some regulations if the decision were to allow for the locations of
these facilities in town,” continued Plante.
What happens next could happen soon. The
way it works is the council can enact this as an emergency, so it could be voted
on it next Tuesday night. By charter an emergency ordinance only remains in
place for 60 days. “There’s no time to post a public hearing notice as required
by the ordinance. We have to have at least seven days and so there isn’t time
between now and next Tuesday,” added Plante.
A tentative vote for the moratorium is
scheduled for November 22nd and then a public hearing and another vote on
December 13th. If enacted, it would be in place for 180 days or until ordinance
language is put into place. Council members unanimously agreed to have this
item on the agenda for November 22nd meeting at the Windham Town Hall at 7 p.m.
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