Two petitions circulated in Pontiac by a group called Sensible Cannabis Reform for Pontiac aim to revoke – or at least force reworking – the city’s recently passed recreational marijuana ordinances.
One petition would repeal the city’s recreational marijuana business licensing ordinance; the other would repeal the related zoning ordinance. Both were approved by the city council on April 4. The city is supposed to start accepting applications on July 5.
Mayor Tim Greimel mentioned the petitions during Tuesday’s city council meeting, saying they could upend the city’s efforts.
“While we certainly respect the right of individuals to exercise their rights to seek a referendum, I believe that our recently-enacted adult-use marijuana ordinance strikes the right balance on the complicated issues involved in approving adult-use marijuana,” he told The Oakland Press Friday.
Should the petition campaign succeed it will, at the very least, delay the city’s permitting process for recreational marijuana. A worst-case scenario, Greimel said, would force the city to restart the process of approving recreational marijuana rules – or that voters could reject allowing recreational sales in the city.
Pontiac City Clerk Garland Doyle said the law requires each petition to have signatures totaling 10% of the number of voters who cast ballots in the last municipal election, which was Nov. 2, 2021, when 7,285 voters went to the polls.
Sensible Cannabis’ Lisa Dawdy said the group is reviewing and verifying each signature on the petitions before turning the papers into the city clerk’s office, where they would again be verified. She said they have “well over” the 729 minimum signatures required and expect to submit the petitions by the May 4 deadline.
Dawdy said the goal is to pause that process and get the issue before voters. The actual ballot language hasn’t been crafted, she said.
Campaign records show the group filed official paperwork on Jan. 23, with Vincent Brown listed as treasurer as of Feb. 3. He was replaced on April 3 by Dawdy, who is based in Hudsonville. Last week, Brown pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiracy to commit bribery, a felony that could result in up to five years in prison. The charge is related to a bribery scheme involving the state’s marijuana commission, for which three other people have entered guilty pleas.
Sensible Cannabis Reform for Pontiac donors include East Lansing-based Pleasantrees and Royal Oak-based Pontiac Ops Inc., each of which gave $20,000. Oak Park-based GreenHouse Farms Pontiac LLC and West Bloomfield resident Dennis Jaboro each donated $10,000.
The group is represented by the law firm Dykema, which has 14 offices in six states – four in Michigan – and Washington, D.C. Their attorneys did not respond to requests for comment from The Oakland Press on Friday.
Attorney and advocate Mark Abel, of the Detroit-based Cannabis Counsel, said Pontiac’s delays are causing the city to lose out on an important source of revenue and any competitive advantage in the marijuana field. Every provisioning center that opened would have generated an estimated $52,000 per year – adding more than $1 million annually to the city’s coffers.
Since voters approved medical marijuana dispensaries in 2018, none have opened. Abel blamed some of the delay on former Mayor Dierdre Waterman, who opposed the measure.
While Greimel’s administration seemed more amenable to moving forward, Abel said he and the one client he had with an interest in opening a Pontiac business, Brian Swilley, D.O., have grown frustrated and disillusioned.
Swilley wanted to open a medical marijuana dispensary to expand a small caregiver operation he had. The city rejected his application.
“I’m a family physician. I just don’t have the deep pockets like someone who was a wide receiver for the Detroit Lions,” he said. “There’s only so much I can invest in having that kind of facility.”
Now, he’s relieved he didn’t get the medical marijuana permit and feels sorry for those who did, because they must apply separately for recreational licenses.
“They should have been grandfathered into recreational permits,” Swilley said, adding that the free market should determine which businesses succeed or fail. He would prefer the city manage marijuana businesses the same way as party stores and bars, with a 1,000 or 500-foot buffer between them and schools, parks and churches.
His own limited effort cost between $100,000 and $150,000, he said, not counting the hours spent with paperwork and lawyers. During the process, he paid close attention to Pontiac city council meetings. He stopped watching them more than a year ago, but he was aware of the new recreational ordinances. He just learned Friday about the petition drive to repeal the recreational rules.
Swilley has worked in Pontiac since the 1980s.
“The leadership in Pontiac did not help and that tends to be the problem here,” he said. “Without question the current mayor is a vast improvement on what they had in the previous administration, but there’s only so much (Greimel) can do in a year or year-and-a-half.
Swilley calls his attempt at getting a provisioning license a learning experience, one that he doesn’t regret.
“It could have been far worse,” he said. One example he cited is the state of the long-empty Glenwood Plaza, which had been destined for renovation and renewal by Rubicon Real Estate Holdings.
That project persuaded some previous city council members to drop their opposition to medical marijuana, because “any improvement of Glenwood was better than nothing,” he said. Rubicon recently filed a $60 million lawsuit against Pontiac over the permitting delays.
“Pontiac has been good for me,”Swilley said. “I really want what’s best for Pontiac and this is not it.”
Attorney Matt Abel said the process shows that Pontiac is “highly dysfunctional, over and over again” when it comes to marijuana permits.
He had approached the city last year to organize a summer event
“They just weren’t responsive,” he said. Instead, the cannabis event he’s planned will happen June 10 and 11 in Ypsilanti, where it’s expected to attract thousands of people each day and generate thousands of dollars for the city.
Meanwhile in Pontiac, he said, “there’s no revenue, no new jobs, no new construction. They had such an opportunity five years ago and really have squandered it almost completely, at this point.”
Recent Comments