[420 Girl]

ROYAL OAK — The Royal Oak City Commission unanimously rejected a request Monday to suspend the city’s moratorium on commercial facilities involving medical marijuana, blocking at least for now the effort by a warehouse owner to turn his building into what could have become the state’s largest marijuana growing facility.

The 7-0 vote came near midnight in a packed, lengthy meeting that ran from 7:30 p.m. until 1:37 a.m. today. At the meeting, dozens of citizens spoke for and against allowing medical-marijuana facilities in the city, and many others — many of them wearing handguns in holsters — told commissioners that they have a right to carry handguns at the upcoming Arts, Beats & Eats festival over the Labor Day weekend.

The 23,000-square-foot warehouse, in an industrial area north of 14 Mile and west of Crooks, is empty and landlord James Canner told commissioner that the building faces foreclosure if he is not allowed to lease it for medical-marijuana cultivation. But Canner was not convincing in his argument that he had no other options, City Commissioner Chuck Semchena said today.

Royal Oak, like many other communities in metro Detroit, imposed a grow moratorium on medical-marijuana commerce, “and we don’t think there’s a medical-marijuana emergency” that would keep Canner from waiting until the city’s moratorium expires in October before he applies for the new use for his warehouse, Semchena said.

In a separate but related issue, the city commission voted to send to the city’s planning commission a proposal to change the city’s zoning ordinance so as to virtually ban commercial marijuana operations, as have Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills and Livonia.



NewsHawk: MedicalNeed: 420 MAGAZINE
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Website: Royal Oak blocks proposed medical-marijuana factory | freep.com | Detroit Free Press


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