Muslim dogma, marijuana profits, lawyers and politics have collided to create a municipal mess in the Detroit suburb of Hamtramck.
Early last month, Hamtramck’s first retail marijuana shop, Pleasantrees, to the surprise of nearly all, popped up in a former Polish veteran’s club within an earshot of the Abu-Bakr Al-Siddique Islamic Center’s frequent call to prayer.
As many Americans’ views of marijuana shift and it becomes more socially acceptable, some Michigan Muslim communities remain staunchly against it, as illustrated by the conflict in which Hamtramck is currently embroiled.
Marijuana, along with alcohol, opiates and all other mind-altering substances, are strictly “prohibited” by the religion’s holy book, the Quran, local Muslim believers and leaders say.
Hamtramck Mayor Pro Tem Fadel Al-Marsoumi, who is Muslim, said the religious doctrine forbids “anything that you will take that alters your state of mind.”
“In Islam, you don’t own your body; you only own your soul,” he said. “The body is a vessel that’s provided by God.”
In nearby Dearborn, another city with a sizable Muslim population, elected officials quickly voted to ban recreational marijuana businesses within weeks of the first state-sanctioned retail stores opening Dec. 1, 2019.
That’s not to say that the Muslim faith is alone in its disdain for the plant’s psychotropic effects or perceptions that marijuana proliferation will spur lawlessness and underage drug abuse. The majority of Michigan cities, townships and villages, more than 1,300 of the 1,700-plus, have already banned recreational marijuana businesses.
“It’s a matter of principle and it’s a matter of religious belief, especially within the Muslim faith, that this is not going to fly,” said Imad Hamad, director of the American Human Rights Council, a Dearborn-based civil rights nonprofit focused on Arab and Muslim-American issues. “It’s a basic religious belief that should be respected.
“I think the people in Hamtramck are just trying to protect their own and protect society at large.”
Related: Marijuana shop snuck into town
Some elected officials in Hamtramck — and residents — believe their opinion of marijuana is not being respected by city administrators, whom they accuse of covertly facilitating the welcome of marijuana businesses to town.
The situation illustrates why Michigan licensing officials in 2019 asked municipalities to officially ban recreational businesses by way of an ordinance if they didn’t want them. Hamtramck’s elected leaders never did, until it was too late.
With the foresight that some communities might not want marijuana shops, the voter-passed law allows communities to make their own decision, but Marijuana Regulatory Agency Director Andrew Brisbo has said, absent an ordinance banning recreational marijuana business, the state agency would process business applications.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Hamtramck City Manager Kathy Angerer said in November when asked if she knew marijuana shops were coming to town. “It’s a matter of whether or not City Council wanted to take action and they’ve been told what inaction means and what action means.
“And at this point, they still have still not taken any kind of ordinance action regarding marijuana.”
Angerer was vague about when she first learned about marijuana commerce interest in Hamtramck. She said, because there was no ordinance, their applications were treated as any other retail business, like a shoe store or dry goods business.
Marijuana businesses, however, have been at the center of public controversy statewide and require special municipal approvals before receiving licensing from the state.
Rarely, if ever, have any Michigan communities opened marijuana shops without public discussion.
Hamtramck’s City Council, once touted in national news stories as the nation’s first to be majority Muslim, passed an ordinance banning future marijuana businesses Dec. 8, not soon enough to stop a second marijuana dispensary, Quality Roots, from establishing its own license to operate in the city.
The company, claiming to have spent nearly $400,000 renovating a former computer store with plans for a marijuana retail shop, took legal action against Hamtramck when the city began contemplating a ban prior to the business’s final licensure.
Under threat of a lawsuit, the City Council in late November took emergency action to approve Quality Roots for licensing before approving in a 4-3 split decision an ordinance that bans future marijuana shops.
‘Dodgy behavior’
Mayor Karen Majewski and Councilman Ian Perrotta told MLive they were both contacted by Pleasantrees some time after October 2019 and referred the company to city administrators.
“Pleasantrees reached out to me as they were considering a Hamtramck location,” Majewski said in an email sent to MLive on Dec. 9. “I do not inform other elected officials when potential businesses of any kind contact me for information about investing in Hamtramck. I answer any questions they may have and point them to the city departments they will probably need to work with.
” … Those are purely administrative functions and out of my hands and out of the hands of all elected officials, per charter. Finally, I have neither the desire nor obligation to invite other elected (officials) to sabotage legal business growth in Hamtramck. They are capable of that without my help.”
When asked specifically when the city learned about Pleasantrees’ intent, Angerer said: “I don’t know for sure, because that happens at the Clerk’s Office.”
The state Marijuana Regulatory Agency requires the signature of a local clerk attesting that the municipality does not have a ban in place before issuing a license. The form includes the business, name, address and marijuana license type. It’s likely Hamtramck knew of marijuana shops’ efforts to open in the city since February, when Pleasantrees completed the first of two stages in the state licensing process.
Angerer and City Clerk August Glitschlag haven’t responded to follow-up questions attempting to clarify the number and type of businesses that have indicated they are or were pursuing licensed in Hamtramck.
Majewski remained coy on the topic, announcing the opening of a bakery-restaurant while conspicuously ignoring Pleasantrees’ opening during a Nov. 9 video address she broadcasts weekly on Facebook.
“I want to welcome a new business to town — I think they’ve been open for a couple weeks now — and that’s Brodie Max, a bakery and restaurant,” she said, never mentioning the new marijuana business that’s likely to bring many more tax dollars and jobs to the city.
“I didn’t want it to stir up any issues,” Majewski later said when asked about it.
Pleasantrees itself, in an unusual move for new marijuana businesses, never publicized its grand opening.
After Pleasantrees opened, City Council marijuana opponents called a Nov. 17 emergency meeting at which the first-reading of a marijuana ban passed. It required a second reading and vote at least two weeks later before taking effect.
In the meantime, city administrators, Quality Roots and Hosh Investments, the company that owns the Hamtramck building at 2024 Caniff where the shop intends to locate, expedited the licensing process. One roadblock was zoning of the building, which according to city planners was incorrectly designated as “residential” and required a variance to operate as a retail business.
The issue came before the Zoning Board of Appeals on Dec. 9. At the time, Quality Roots was presented simply as an unnamed retail business. Marijuana wasn’t mentioned until numerous residents spoke against the rezoning during public comment based on rumors that it would become a marijuana retail store.
Members of the board noted that the presence of two city-contracted attorneys for a normal variance request was irregular, but attorneys wouldn’t confirm nor deny the business seeking the variance intended to sell marijuana.
“Assuming that this is in fact a recreational marijuana retail store, there is nothing in our ordinance right now to prevent that,” said City Attorney Harry Kalogerakos, who is contracted through the Allen Brothers law firm.
The vote failed, leading Quality Roots and Hosh Investments to file litigation against Hamtramck on Nov. 20 asking the Wayne County Circuit Court to intervene and allow licensing, despite a looming ordinance banning marijuana business.
Hosh Investments and Quality Roots “have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into this property with city knowledge and written approval from multiple departments and now the city is attempting to pass an ordinance that would make this investment completely useless,” the court filing said. The Zoning Board of Appeals “thwarted the recommendation and advice of both city staff and legal counsel to reach its denial of the use variance.”
City Council on Nov. 24 held a closed session to discuss the litigation and when they returned to public session passed a resolution requesting the Zoning Board hold an emergency meeting to reconsider the request. The resolution passed unanimously with support from members seeking to ban marijuana business.
When the variance request returned to an emergency Zoning Board meeting, Commissioner Eric Anderson explained why he abstained during the initial failed vote.
It was because “I felt there was limited information and in some cases, sort of dodgy behavior by city administration and city officials,” Anderson said. When city officials “withhold information that clearly is known, I think that is an unfair and sort of disrespectful thing when we should all kind of be working together on this in an open and transparent manner.”
The Zoning Board approved the variance and Quality Roots received its business license on Dec. 10, a day before the ban took effect.
MLive requests for comment from Quality Roots and Pleasantrees have gone unanswered.
Litigation
Officials and elected politicians on both sides of the issue are blaming the other for the municipal chaos and potential for future litigation.
Proponents say anti-marijuana City Council members failed to do their duty and ban marijuana business in a timely manner and there was no reason to block a legal business and forgo needed tax revenue in a city that was under emergency financial management just six years ago. Opponents say the will of the residents should be the utmost concern, and had city officials been forthright, the matter could have been resolved before the possibility of lawsuits arose.
“We all represent everyone in the community, majority and minority, it doesn’t matter,” Councilman Al-Marsoumi said, “but if you know that people came out in droves last year, why are you supporting a business that people don’t want here.”
A backlash of public opposition arose previously when council presented an ordinance that would allow, but limit, marijuana business in 2018.
“About two months ago, a month and a half ago, when I found out about (the new marijuana business opening) I felt like I failed,” Al-Marsoumi said on Dec. 9.
A previous proposal to ban marijuana business didn’t pass in October 2019, Al-Marsoumi said because former anti-marijuana Councilman Anam Miah and himself were out of state when the vote occurred. Al-Marsoumi said several council seats changed in November and then coronavirus pandemic arrived and stalled further efforts.
With hindsight knowledge that marijuana companies were seeking to enter the city, Al-Marsoumi said he regrets not reintroducing a ban earlier and feels “betrayed” by administrators who didn’t share their knowledge with opposing elected officials.
“It is my belief that some council members who publicly oppose marijuana are either privately for it or ambivalent about it,” Councilman Perrotta said, “and I don’t think it was a coincidence that certain members of council were absent when the initial ban was on the agenda” in 2019.
Hamtramck’s elected officials have mentioned but not identified a third business that was in the process of opening in a former restaurant, the former Three-Starr Bar BQ, and indicate up to five others were at one time seeking licenses.
“I’m not aware of any other active suits but if the (business) going into Three-Starr gets caught up in the ordinance, they will likely sue,” Councilman Perrotta said. I “have also heard of another one that potentially would jump on if they get held up.”
‘Not a secret’
Frustration between elected officials was evident during the 5 1/2-hour Dec. 8 meeting at which future marijuana businesses were banned. It ended with the Councilwoman Andrea Karpinski resigning after members rejected her proposed to create an ordinance to “grandfather” and regulate the existing marijuana businesses.
It’s unclear how Hamtramck officials plan to respond to other marijuana businesses that are in the licensing process.
“Just as you have questions, I know those businesses also have questions because this is their livelihood,” Al-Marsoumi said Thursday. “We need to be able to answer when is the cutoff and we also have to be able to answer as to … which of these we will be able to essentially fight off and and utilize the ban to say, no.”
As those questions are sorted out, a movement is already afoot to overturn the ban.
When 56% of Michigan residents voted to legalize recreational use of marijuana in 2018, 55% of Hamtramck voters opposed it.
The “majority of the city practices Islam and Islam frowns on using marijuana,” Al-Marsoumi, who immigrated from Iraq to Hamtramck at age 3. “It’s not a secret at this point.”
That’s not stopping Hamtramck resident Linda Ward from attempting to overturn the ban.
According to Hamtramck’s charter, if Ward and the grassroots effort are able to obtain nearly 500 signatures (15% of the total votes in the last mayoral election) by year’s end, City Council must repeal the ban or put the issue before voters in an election.
While the community didn’t support recreational marijuana in 2018, Ward thinks think a business ban amid existing legalization is a “fundamentally different issue.”
With recreational marijuana already legal, there’s less of a reason to oppose regulating businesses that sell it, she said. And the federal government is showing signs that it may decriminalize marijuana.
“City Council really dropped the ball” and “now we’re like Mad Max in the Thunderdome,” Ward said. “It’s a complicated situation with a lot of nuances.
“I think because it is so highly contested, it should be on the ballot and that’s ultimately what I hope will happen.”
More cannabis industry news on MLive:
Marijuana drinks could be coming to Michigan
Michigan stands to gain more than $1B as recreational marijuana shops open
Medical marijuana blazed a trail for cannabis in Michigan. Now, recreational takes the lead.
Michigan marijuana industry changed, but thriving amid coronavirus pandemic
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