Kalispell bans new pot businesses
Despite pleas from seven speakers Monday night and a motion to reconsider by council member Bob Hafferman, the Kalispell City Council adopted a law to ban new medical marijuana dispensaries and commercial grow operations in city limits.
Council member Randy Kenyon joined with Hafferman in asking the city to take time to reconsider how the law is constructed.
When that motion failed, both men voted to ditch the second reading of the new land-use ordinance. Kenyon was absent at the council’s last meeting when Hafferman was the lone dissenter on first reading of the ordinance.
Every other council member supported the law both times, but for varying reasons.
“I don’t see this as federal versus state law, or a pre-emption of state law,” Mayor Tammi Fisher said. “I see this as a contract issue … it’s a tenuous issue.”
City Attorney Charles Harball had centered his argument on the possibility that allowing commercial medical marijuana land uses would put the city at odds with federal law and could result in repaying grant money in the future.
Several speakers had urged the council to follow state law by making medical marijuana legal across the board. Others doubted that U.S. authorities would demand grant repayment if the city doesn’t abide by federal law that makes marijuana illegal.
Attorney General Eric Holder announced last fall the government reserves the right not to prosecute marijuana offenses in certain cases — and medical marijuana states are among those cases, Adjutant City Attorney Rich Hickel explained to the council. The decision makes Montana one of 14 states with medical marijuana laws where enforcement now is on uncertain ground.
Fisher pressed Hickel on whether Holder intended the directive only for criminal cases, or whether his department has issued a memo on enforcement when it comes to funding contracts with cities, counties and states. Hickel cited conflicting memos from the Attorney General’s office and the Drug Enforcement Agency.
“I haven’t seen anything that the federal government will suspend those obligations in grant agreements,” Hickel said.
“How do we be sure we’re not going to lose money?” Fisher posed her concern. “Until they say we are forfeiting that right, I can’t say they won’t come back and enforce it.”
It didn’t convince Hafferman.
He had proposed last time that the zoning ordinance’s ban on land use that violates federal, state or local law be replaced with a requirement to follow the federal constitution and Montana laws. He stuck by that Monday night.
“We’re going to have to pay for any litigation that occurs on this ordinance, which does not solve one stinkin’ thing,” Hafferman told his colleagues.
He had argued for the council to take a step back and seek input from the Northwest Drug Task Force and Kalispell police on how to write a law that would help them tackle illegal use of marijuana.
For more on this story, read Wednesday's Daily Inter Lake.