Have they opened Pandora’s box? Some Deerfield Beach city leaders worry that’s what they might’ve done by allowing marijuana dispensaries in the city.
They’re now trying to stop medical dispensaries from clustering citywide by keeping them out of commercial areas that also have homes, as well as setting rules to stop them from opening next to one another.
Mayor Bill Ganz said he doesn’t want the city to become known as the place to buy pot, even if it’s just the medical kind that doesn’t get you high.
“This gives us a little more protection, or at least a way to stop the high concentration of these businesses,” Ganz said of city rules approved Tuesday.
The shops have been slow to appear in South Florida.
Because the medical marijuana business operates in a legal gray area — allowed by the state but against federal rules — it’s a cash-only business.
Miami has a few shops. Not one has opened in Broward County. Knox Medical, which opened in Lake Worth last month, was Palm Beach County’s first medical marijuana dispensary. It ran out of its product — sold in vaping cartridges and oral oils — on its first day, a spokesman said.
Unlike Deerfield Beach, cities such as Delray Beach, Boca Raton and Fort Lauderdale have enacted bans or extended temporary moratoriums to keep away the pot stores.
Maybe other cities “were wiser than we were at first,” Miller said.
Miller said he voted in favor of the dispensaries last August, swallowing concerns of how the cash-only businesses might be the wrong kind of draw.
He said he thought it was the compassionate thing to do for patients who have cancer, epilepsy, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, post-traumatic stress disorder, Lou Gehrig’s disease, Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis or similar conditions.
Miller said he didn’t know at the time patients can get home delivery of their marijuana prescriptions.
“I would be up for a new ordinance banning shops now that we realize if we restrict it, the people would still have access to it,” Miller said.
If Deerfield is one of the only cities with shops, “we’re going to get people from Boca, Pompano, all over,” Miller said at a meeting Tuesday.
Commissioner Todd Drosky agreed, saying he thought Miller “is on to something here.”
But the discussion drew a fiery response from Commissioner Bernie Parness, who chided commissioners spooked by actions in other cities as “childish.”
“You are protecting us against what?” he said. “A legal store selling a legal product to ease pain, children with epilepsy, people with brain cancer?
“I stand with backbone and say, ‘People who are suffering deserve relief and they deserve it in the city they live in,’” he added.
State voters approved legalizing medical marijuana with Amendment 2 last November. Seventy-six percent of Deerfield Beach’s voters said yes to medical marijuana.
State legislators gave cities just two options — ban dispensaries outright or allow them with rules no more restrictive than they impose on corner drug stores.
This week, Deerfield Beach commissioners gave initial approval to limiting dispensaries and regular commercial pharmacies to certain commercial areas, excluding areas such as office parks, a strip along the city’s Intracoastal Waterway and areas where stores and homes co-exist.
Also, dispensaries and pharmacies, such as CVS and Walgreens, can open no closer than 1,000 feet from one another, according to the new rules.
Medical marijuana dispensaries have been allowed in the unincorporated parts of both Broward and Palm Beach counties, among other locations.
The issue is still being ironed out in several communities.
Margate, which OK’d a four-month extension of its yearlong moratorium, has scheduled a Monday workshop to draft rules for allowing medical pot shops.
Coconut Creek and Hollywood had rules to allow the dispensaries in certain zones, but that was before the Legislature drafted rules that made the cities’ restrictions illegal.
Coconut Creek will be updating its rules for pot shops at its Dec. 14 meeting. Vice Mayor Joshua Rydell said it’s in keeping with voters’ wishes.
“I think the voters spoke — especially in our county,” he said, noting the 76 percent of Broward County voters who approved of medical marijuana was higher than the 71 percent support it received statewide.
In Palm Beach County, 75 percent of voters approved medical marijuana.
credit:sun-sentinel.com
