Cannabis enthusiasts and marijuana entrepreneurs are eagerly anticipating the New Year, as it will ring in the legal sale of recreational marijuana in Montana.
It’s unclear whether anyone in Bozeman’s City Hall is excited for January for personal reasons, but the city is preparing for the change, nonetheless.
On Monday Oct. 11, the Zoning Commission will take up the first action in implementing the soon-to-be-legal sale of recreational marijuana by considering changes to the city’s code regulating medical marijuana sale.
While the Zoning Commission is only reviewing portions of the ordinance which pertain to zoning, the city commission is set to take up the rest of the ordinance at its Oct. 19 meeting.
The proposed ordinance would regulate all marijuana businesses both recreational and medical the same, and increase the distance a cannabis business must be from a school.
Marijuana business means a dispensary or any cultivation or manufacture facility, according to the city’s ordinance.
The city’s regulations now require a dispensary to be 400 feet from the exterior property line of school properties, according to Assistant City Attorney Anna Saverud.
A state law passed this year to implement recreational marijuana requires a minimum of 500 feet between dispensaries and institutions like schools, post-secondary schools, churches, synagogues and other places of worship.
Though state law requires that 500 feet to be measured from the center of the closest entrance of a school or place of worship, the city’s proposed ordinance would measure the distance from the property boundary.
The minimum distance requirement applies to the main part of Montana State University’s campus, according to the ordinance.
Existing dispensaries that may not meet the additional required distance would be grandfathered in, according to the ordinance.
The cultivation, manufacturing and testing of recreational marijuana will also be legal in January. The proposed ordinance also would require those facilities to have an air vent system that would control discharge of particulates and odors.
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