PORTAGE, MI — Drive-thru marijuana dispensaries are now permitted in the city of Portage.
The city of Portage made four changes to its municipal marijuana code, following a 6-1 vote from the city council at its Tuesday, May 23 meeting. Only councilmember Terry Urban voted against the changes.
Among the changes, none were bigger than allowing for drive-thru dispensaries within the city limits. One other change had to do with regulations permitting to the newly-allowed drive-thrus, while the other two changes banned outdoor, commercial grow operations and changed the spelling of marijuana from marihuana in the city code.
While the changes within city code align with new standards as it pertains to drive-thrus, the city went against the grain with its decision to ban outdoor, commercial grow operations.
Related: Portage could allow drive-thru marijuana businesses, ban outdoor grows
The city, at present, has just one grow operation, which is an indoor-only operation. The city had no pending applications or previously approved applications for any other grow facilities at the time the changes were introduced to the city’s planning commission on April 6, senior city planner Eric Feldt said at the time.
Thus, no existing businesses were being affected by any change, Feldt said. Staff proposed the change in order to better attract future industrial growth and employment for its large tracts of vacant land located within its industrial districts, he said.
As far as drive-thrus are concerned, the state began to allow drive-thru dispensaries during the COVID pandemic to promote contactless or limited contact transactions. In 2022, the state made the decision to permanently allow them.
However, it remained up to individual municipalities, if they wished to align their local codes once the state made its change.
City spokesperson Mary Beth Block explained in an email this April to MLive/Kalamazoo Gazette that as a result of the state permitting drive-thru marijuana businesses during COVID, Lake Effect and other dispensaries in the community made the decision to install drive-thru windows.
Once the impacts of the pandemic began to subside, the city then “directed all dispensaries to cease any drive-thru operations unless and until the proposed ordinance revisions (were) enacted by the city council,” she said.
Prior to Tuesday’s vote, James Brayton and Kimm Owsiany, co-owners of Green Eden recreational cannabis business, both addressed council. They stated that they were disappointed in the drive-thru ban.
Brayton is the brother-in-law of councilmember Lisa Brayton, who voted in favor of the changes.
Comparing it to curbside pickup, Owsiany said it is much safer for employees to be behind a window, under a camera, when dealing with customers than approaching a vehicle in a parking lot.
The couple said they had heard from numerous patrons, many who were handicapped, that they were discouraged by the lack of convenience by having to go into the store to purchase their product after the city began enforcing its pre-pandemic ordinance.
At a prior city council meeting in April, Urban said that he was not in favor of making it easier for customers to access marijuana and expressed concerns over minors potentially being in a customer’s car when there were no restrictions put in place by the state’s cannabis regulatory agency to deal with that.
“There has been concern about children in the car going through a marijuana drive-thru but I don’t hear any concerns about children in a car going through a drive-thru picking up prescription drugs that are addictive for children, so I think we are kind of grasping at straws,” said Mayor Pro Tem Jim Pearson at the time.
Moving forward, with drive-thrus now allowed for adult-use recreational, medical provisioning centers and microbusinesses that grow, process and sell in a single location, any marijuana business desiring to operate a drive-thru will still need to apply for a drive-thru permit and be located within a zoned B-3 district.
The city currently has 10 dispensaries, and at least two of them have expressed interest in operating a drive-thru, Feldt said.
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