This article was originally published on the Marijuana Patients Organization site on June 28, 2011.
The city of Lansing has set ordinances of who, what, and where regarding medical marijuana dispensaries in the city, and said loudly absolutely no medical marijuana on Michigan Avenue. This recent action was in response to the lobby efforts of two Lansing neighborhood associations to eliminate the dispensaries along Michigan Avenue. Both are 501(c) organizations that are tax exempt and also unable to participate in the political process, i.e. lobby for policy change, given their tax status. Who is more guilty, the neighborhood association or a city council that restricted business to the even more dangerous part of Lansing, putting patients at risk and limiting safe access.
Council-member-at-large whom she prefers to be addressed, Carol Wood, has been a catalyst within city council for this recent ordinance. Is the city ready for possible legal actions brought on by 48 dispensary owners, employees, landlords and patients that are effected by this ordinance?
Several dispensary operators had set up shop along Michigan Avenue after the city attorney and city council voiced to the community their desire for dispensaries being located on Michigan Avenue, east of the Capital and went to work drafting ordinances, only to eventually be slowed by Carol Wood and her renegade Neighborhood Associations.
In a June 2010 Lansing State Journal article council woman at large, Carol Wood commented on proposed ordinances, “This is a good start, the dispensaries would have to be in the city’s F or F-1 commercial districts, which are spread throughout the city and include Michigan Avenue east of Pennsylvania Avenue and Frandor.”
This along with other statements by city council and more respectively Lansing city attorney Brigg Smith, gave dispensary operators and their counsel direction where to sign leases and invest capital. This recent ordinance will all but destroy these businesses and raises the question, how much will this ordinance cost Lansing and what will replace the empty storefronts on Michigan Avenue. Does a city need to face litigation, destroy jobs, limit the tax base and restrict commerce when it recently laid off more police officers this week and is facing another $20 million deficit?