City of Gresham contemplating marijuana regulations

Legalized recreational marijuana use is inevitably coming to Oregon. But, first, the immediate question the City of Gresham is tasked with answering now is how to regulate medical marijuana dispensaries.

A secondary issue the city is considering is whether to allow commercial marijuana grow operations in industrial areas.

Gresham enacted a law in 2010 that prohibited businesses that break federal law from its core area. If the city council does decide to allow marijuana-related businesses, city staff have recommended using a “registration with regulation” approach.

“Tell us who you are and then also comply with the regulations we set forth,” Eric Schmidt, Gresham’s community development director, explained at the council’s most recent meeting, on April 7. This approach is similar to Gresham’s regulation of businesses that collect construction debris and recyclables, he said.

A key challenge for the council is tackling what to do for patients who can’t grow their own medical marijuana.

The city’s current definition of a personal medical marijuana garden is a person growing their own medical marijuana where they live. The definition could be seen as restrictive. The intent is to avoid card stacking, which is where multiple gardeners utilize one address to grow medical marijuana for what can end up being dozens of patients and hundreds of plants.

Schmidt said that redefining what personal medical marijuana is could provide patients, caregivers and growers the opportunity to grow marijuana while not impacting a neighborhood. “The public input at the medical marijuana public forum last month [reviewed] whether this definition is too narrow, as it could exclude patients that are too ill to grow their own medical marijuana,” he said.

Non-personal use, or commercial growers, won’t be able to exclusively grow medical marijuana in commercial/industrial districts. That’s because Gresham’s development code doesn’t allow for agricultural use, though there have been exceptions made by the city in the past.

“Based on past land use decisions by (the city), we have allowed agricultural growing in industrial areas if that grow operation – in this case it happened to be bean sprouts – if that took place in conjunction with processing of the product,” said David Ris, Gresham City Attorney.

Under debate are the distances that marijuana businesses will have to be from locations such as schools, churches, and parks. The state has set the (marijuana grow) exclusion zone around a school at 1,000 feet, but local governments have the ability to impose even tighter restrictions.

“I think that 1,000 feet probably isn’t enough, because a thousand feet isn’t very far. It’s less than a quarter mile,” said City Councilor Michael McCormick.

“Maybe we need a discussion to decide what is an appropriate distance. This is imperative and there needs to be more discretion,” he said.

While the council agreed to provide direction to city staff workers so they can move forward with draft regulations, the panel wasn’t able to agree on specifics. One point they were able to agree on is that the clear will of the voters is to allow marijuana in Oregon communities.

The next Gresham City Council meeting is at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, and will be streamed live at http://www.greshamoregon.gov/videos/.

Citizens may provide testimony in person at the Gresham City Hall Council Chambers, at 1331 N.W. Eastman Parkway.