YPSILANTI, MI – As the city of Ypsilanti shifts its focus toward whether it will allow recreational marijuana businesses, its city council took a step toward making life easier for medical marijuana business owners.
City council unanimously passed changes Tuesday, July 2, on a first reading of an ordinance allowing medical marijuana businesses to transfer business permits to new owners, if that transfer has first been allowed by the state.
The changes would help Ypsilanti’s ordinance better reflect the state’s license transfer provisions, City Attorney John Barr said.
“Until now, if someone wanted to get out of the business (and) sell it to someone else, they wouldn’t be able to,” Mayor Beth Bashert said. “They’d have to shut it down and we’d have a lottery to see who would get the existing permit within the city. Now, if someone wants to move it from one entity to another they can (if passed), as long as they’re within state and local regulations.”
While the city’s current ordinance doesn’t expressly forbid transfers of a city permit for medical marijuana businesses, it also doesn’t authorize transfers or spell out a procedure for them.
If passed on a second reading, the changes also would create three application types for current and prospective medical marijuana business owners: one for an initial permit, one for a renewed permit and one for the transfer of an existing permit.
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The proposed changes were welcomed by some of Ypsilanti’s 10 medical marijuana business owners, including Third Coast of Ypsilanti’s Darrell Stavros, who has operated his facility at 19 N. Hamilton St. for 11 years.
“I want to support the transfer because we have people we’ve employed for all of these years,” he said. “If, for some reason, we couldn’t keep going, we’d like to get someone in that place that could. People put their livelihood into these businesses – sometimes (millions) of dollars.”
While the council focused on the proposed ordinance changes on Tuesday, discussion on whether the city will opt to allow recreational marijuana establishments is coming within the next month or two, Bashert said. Municipalities have to decide whether or not they want to allow recreational marijuana businesses in their communities by October.
Council members are already speculating about the future of recreational marijuana in the city, remarking that it’s hard to ignore that city voters were for legalization on the statewide ballot in November 2018 with 82 percent approval.
Ward 3 Council Member Anthony Morgan said he was skeptical about what allowing recreational marijuana businesses would bring to the city, since the city already has an abundance of medical marijuana facilities, in addition to bars and coffee houses.
“I’m for business, I just don’t want people to think the more marijuana, the better Ypsilanti is going to be,” Morgan said. “I’m into owners being able to dictate who they can transfer their property to. But recreational (and) medical marijuana is not making our city better.”
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Council member Annie Somerville said she believes the city will ultimately opt in, making creating equity within medical and recreational business communities critical for Ypsilanti.
The state’s Marijuana Regulatory Agency issued emergency rules for implementing recreational marijuana Wednesday, July 3, enabling the MRA to fully implement the marijuana proposal voters approved. The MRA plans to start taking business applications on Nov. 1, giving stakeholders four months to evaluate the rules.
Designed to allow prospective licensees to operate under clear requirements, the emergency rules will remain in effect for six months.
Across the city line, the Ypsilanti Township board voted to ban recreational marijuana establishments in April – at least until more information from the state was available on how those businesses would operate.
While the rules weren’t announced before Tuesday’s meeting, Adam Tasselmyre said allowing recreational marijuana in Ypsilanti would undoubtedly be a positive for medical marijuana providers, who would have first crack at selling it to recreational users.
Tasselmyre, who has operated Herbal Solutions, 124 W. Michigan Ave., for eight years said his business attracts between 200 and 400 customers a day – the vast majority from outside the city limits.
“To be able to have our patients and customers expand to anyone over 21 years old would be very helpful,” he said.
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