At the Sioux Falls City Council Informational Meeting yesterday Councilor Neitzert (who was chair of the IM 26 Task Force) gave his analysis on the recommendations for zoning of Medical MJ dispensaries. Besides the possible licensing fee of $140K (that is still being negotiated by the county) there is a 1,000 foot setback from daycares, parks, churches, schools AND single family residential. This of course is ridiculous on many levels. First off, as several commenters pointed out in public input, this is MEDICAL marijuana, not recreational, so essentially these facilities are pharmacies, and secondly it is pretty discreet. Just like going to a Walgreens you will get your prescription and take it home to use. There won’t be people hanging out in the lobby and in front of the dispensaries getting high. Besides, most of Med MJ is in edible form, so you won’t even see people using it.
One cannabis advocate, Emmett Riestroffer pointed out he could only find 2 locations in Sioux Falls you could have dispensaries if this zoning was permitted. One spot was North of the airport and the other was by the wastewater treatment plant. But more importantly Emmett pointed out why they were trying to limit it, because of Mayor TenHaken’s involvement and direction. By charter this is a violation of his legislative duties.
Many advocates came up and talked about the missed business opportunity, the limited access and pending lawsuits. I talked about how the task force met in early morning during the work week at the Downtown library where you have to pay parking. The meetings were NOT recorded, so if you did not attend we have no idea what was talked about.
I think I have a theory of why they are trying to limit access. It’s all part of a bigger effort by the Municipal League to ONLY allow municipalities and counties to own and operate dispensaries. They will likely hire private contractors to run the facilities (friends and business associates of the elected officials) and keep all the profits to themselves shutting out private industry.
You have to remember when it comes to governing in our state, especially locally, it’s always about greed and the connected making money. While they may blame the morality of using MJ (it’s a harmless plant folks) it’s really about control and the authoritarians got there marching orders from the dictator in the corner office.
The Sioux Falls Planning Commission will vote on the proposed ordinance at their August 4 meeting.