Committee amends cannabis ordinance sequencing to match state rules and continues item

The Committee on Ordinance voted to amend the local cannabis regulations to align municipal sequencing with recent state cannabis commission rules, then continued the item for final drafting.

Deputy Director Robert Azar said the city’s existing code required applicants to obtain state approvals before seeking municipal approvals; recent changes by the state cannabis commission instead require municipal approval first. Azar asked the committee to revise the ordinance language so that municipal approvals occur prior to state applications and proposed a clerical change to prefix cannabis‑related uses in the zoning use table with “cannabis‑” to group them alphabetically.

A brief amendment to revise wording in the use table was proposed and adopted by the committee. No substantive change to the distance, square footage or use‑standards was made; staff said all existing separation distances and use standards remain in place. The committee voted to close the public hearing on the item and to continue the ordinance for final review and posting.

Why it matters

The amendment is procedural: it updates local sequencing and textual organization to reflect state licensing procedures, preventing a “chicken‑and‑egg” situation in which applicants could not proceed because municipal rules required state approval first.