BANDON – The City of Bandon is proposing to adopt an ordinance regarding the siting of recreational marijuana facilities within the light industrial and general commercial zones inside city limits.
A public hearing on the issue will be held tonight at 7 during the regular City Council meeting in council chambers of City Hall. Public testimony is welcome.
The proposed ordinance and a staff report is available for inspection online here, at the City of Bandon Planning Department at no cost, or hard copies can be made available at the actual cost of copying.
Background: The State of Oregon Legislature passed House Bill 3460 and was signed by Governor Kitzhaber on Aug. 14, 2013. The bill allowed medical dispensaries to be open through a licensing process by the State of Oregon.
After an initial moratorium on medical marijuana sales was adopted in May, 2014, the Bandon City Council addressed the issue of the siting of medical marijuana dispensaries and passed Ordinance Number 1616 in May, 2015.
The ordinance states that facilities are conditional uses permitted only in general commercial (C-2) or light industrial (LI) zones, and cannot be located within 1,500 linear feet of a school or Head Start facility. No marijuana production may occur onsite at a dispensary, and each facility must use an air filtration and ventilation system to confine objectionable odors.
In addition, anyone convicted of the manufacture or delivery of a controlled substance once or more in the previous five years, or twice in a lifetime, cannot be an operator or employee, or have a financial interest in a dispensary.
The City Council also limited operating hours for medical marijuana facilities to any eight hours between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. The facilities may not feature a sign promoting or showing any product and minimum parking requirements will be one space per 600 square feet of floor area, plus one space for every two employees.
Measure 91, the recreational marijuana use legislation, was passed by Oregon voters at the Nov. 4, 2014 election. The Bandon City Council opted to place a moratorium on recreational facilities at the time of the adoption of Ordinance Number 1616, to provide them with more time to research the topic before making a decision.
A public hearing was held before the Planning Commission on Sept. 28. At the meeting, staff presented a report to the commission with language similar to that in the medical marijuana ordinance adopted by the Council in 2014. Staff recommended adding additional language regarding commercial design standards, required distance between facilities selling marijuana products, and locating the business in a permanent location.
While the commission agreed to the added conditions, they also voted to recommend lowering the buffer radius around school buildings from 1500 linear feet to 1000 linear feet and to remove the Head Start facility from the buffered properties because the facility does not create school-aged foot traffic. The commission’s decision was made based on information from the previous public hearings during the time of adopting the medical marijuana ordinance.
Based on the direction of the Planning Commission, a 1000 linear foot radius was drawn around each of the schools in Bandon to determine which properties would be affected by the proposed ordinance.
There are over 200 tax lots within the C-2 and LI zones outside of the 1000 foot buffer radius that are affected by the proposed ordinance.
“The proposed ordinance follows the city’s previous efforts regarding the siting of medical marijuana facilities,” states a Planning Department staff report. “By addressing the concern of locating recreational and medical marijuana sales in the same building and with the addition of design standards and a prohibition on window/door bars and grates, we believe the ordinance adequately addresses the siting of recreational marijuana facilities within city limits.”
credit:theworldlink.com
