CRESWELL — Creswell residents have one issue on their Nov. 7 ballots, and one company stands to benefit greatly if residents vote yes.
Measure 20-280 would allow recreational marijuana sales in Creswell if passed. Because of the careful wording of the measure, the first store that opens may be the only one allowed in the city, with few or no other pot stores permitted.
The ballot measure’s author and advocate, One Gro, a start-up company co-founded by Eugene defense attorney Mike Arnold, wants to sell marijuana in Creswell. The company already has offices at 285 E. Oregon Ave., in the same building as its coffee shop, called the NakD Bean.
The officials behind One Gro have an application for a recreational marijuana retailer at the address, said Mark Pettinger, Oregon Liquor Control Commission spokesman. The OLCC regulates the recreational pot industry in Oregon and its records show that the store would be called Creswell Cannabis Outlet by NakD Farms.
Measure 20-280 would confine marijuana retailers to land zoned “general commercial” and maintain a ban on pot shops in the downtown and in residential zones of the city.
And, it would require marijuana retailers to be 1,000 feet away from any parks, schools and land zoned “resort commercial.”
In addition, no marijuana shop could be within 1,000 feet of another pot shop, unless both were controlled by the same ownership.
If the measure passed and One Gro became the first shop, other pots shops couldn’t open within 1,000 feet.
Plus, rival pot shops would have a hard time finding a place to legally locate elsewhere in town, given the 1,000-foot buffers mandated around parks, open space and “resort commercial” areas, a review of Creswell land use maps shows.
The restrictions appear to eliminate almost any possible spots for pot shops in Creswell’s retail area east of Interstate 5. On the west side of Creswell, there appear to be just short strips along Highway 99, south and north of the city center, that would be available for marijuana retailers and not eliminated by any of Measure 20-280’s buffer requirements.
One Gro leaders met with city officials to draft the ordinance, said Dan Isaacson, One Gro’s chief executive. He said the company spent thousands of dollars to help develop the rules.
“The risk comes with a reward,” he said.
Individual companies pursuing laws that benefit them doesn’t happen often in Oregon, but it does happen, said Jim Moore, a politics professor at Pacific University in Forest Grove.
Timber companies often pushed for county rules to aid their industry during the heyday of logging, he said. And athletics apparel juggernaut Nike crafted a 30-year tax deal with former Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber.
A pot company pursuing a local law to help it get established could be considered a sign of the times. Recreational sale of the drug in Oregon became legal in 2015.
“It’s not a surprise at all that the marijuana company would do this,” Moore said.
One Gro has promised to give the city at least $105,000 a year in tax revenue, which company leaders have said would help cover the cost of more patrols by Lane County sheriff’s deputies in Creswell.
credit:registerguard.com