Maryland’s counties are calling for state lawmakers to grant them more control over where cannabis businesses can set up shop.
The state’s cannabis law prohibits dispensaries from being within 500 feet of a school, child care center, playground, public park, recreation center or library, or within 1,000 feet of another dispensary.
The law allows local governments to reduce the distance requirements. County officials, however, want the authority to increase the distance between dispensaries and keep them farther from places that children frequent.
A spokesman for the Maryland Association of Counties (MACo), an advocate for the state’s 23 counties and Baltimore city, contended that the state legislature meant to allow counties to increase the required distances, but that the language in the law doesn’t reflect what lawmakers intended.
“The legislative intent was to authorize counties to increase that spacing requirement within reason, but (the law) fails to match the intent,” MACo Legislative Director Kevin Kinnally wrote in an email. “It’s a glaring, obvious fix waiting to happen if they choose to open the door to doing so.”
State Sen. Melony Griffith and Del. C.T. Wilson, who chair the respective Senate and House of Delegates committees through which the cannabis bill passed before lawmakers cast their final votes, weren’t immediately available for comment when their legislative offices were reached by email.
Sen. Guy Guzzone, who chairs a second Senate committee through which the bill passed, could not be reached for comment by phone call or email.
Days after recreational cannabis use became legal for people 21 years and older on July 1, Prince George’s County Council members proposed restricting cannabis businesses to industrial zones and at least 2,500 feet from schools and daycares, according to a July report from The Washington Post.
The proposal drew backlash from cannabis business owners in the county because it didn’t grandfather in existing establishments.
But, one of the council members sponsoring the proposal said it was a drafting error that existing shops weren’t exempt, The Post reported.
The Prince George’s County Council is on its annual August recess and is scheduled to meet again Sept. 6.
Will Tilburg, acting director of the Maryland Cannabis Administration, which regulates the state’s recreational cannabis businesses, said in an interview that local officials have asked for clarification about the extent to which they can regulate zoning for businesses selling marijuana.
The law states that local governments can establish “reasonable zoning requirements,” but they cannot “unduly burden” a cannabis business.
Tilburg said points of clarification like this are typical when a state is establishing a new industry, particularly with recreational cannabis. It’ll be up to local governments and the legislature to interpret or amend the law, he said.
“It’s something that we’ve seen specifically with cannabis in rollouts across the country, is local governments wanting to maximize their level of control over the siting of businesses, operating hours, those types of things,” said Tilburg.
County governments, Kinnally wrote, are also looking for state lawmakers to change the cannabis market’s “incommensurate revenue sharing,” considering the obligation that counties have to pay their share of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, a plan to transform public education systems that includes increasing school funding by $3.8 billion each year over the next decade.
Local governments receive 5% of the tax revenue from cannabis sales, which Kinnally claimed is the “smallest local share of revenue of any state with legal adult-use cannabis.”
With a 9% sales tax on cannabis, local governments receive $0.45 for a purchase of $100 of cannabis, Kinnally wrote. For purchases within municipal boundaries, counties split the local revenue share with the municipality.
“Maybe we’ll get another bite at the tax apple, it’s too soon to tell,” Kinnally wrote.
Publicly, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore has lauded the state’s rollout of the adult-use cannabis market, saying the Maryland Cannabis Administration’s work has been “nation-leading.”
Moore, a Democrat, applauded Tilburg’s leadership during a Board of Public Works meeting Wednesday before the governor, the comptroller and the treasurer voted to approve the Maryland Cannabis Administration’s request for $262,000 for leasing lab space in Baltimore.
“In the words of Jay-Z, difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week,” Moore said to Tilburg. “And you’ve been able to roll this thing out in a really, really powerful fashion.”
The board also approved $308,000 for the Department of Commerce to create three positions to help administer loans and grants for cannabis businesses.
The department is set to grant $40 million to cannabis business owners, prioritizing applicants from communities hurt most by historical cannabis criminalization.
The grants are part of the state’s push to ensure the recreational cannabis industry creates opportunities for Black and brown people and other communities targeted in the decades-long war on drugs.
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