Dispensary moratorium needed, ordinance says

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An ordinance that prohibits issuing permits for retail dispensaries, cultivators, or processors of recreational marijuana in the City of Northwood until Dec. 1, 2025, has been approved by city council.
Council heard the third reading of the ordinance last week and by a 4-3 vote passed it.
Louis Fahrbach, Jim Barton, Mark Stoner, and Randy Kozina, voted for the ordinance while Dean Edwards, Pat Huntermark, and Michael Melnyk voted against it.
The ordinance says the moratorium will give city officials time to study state regulations that were adopted after voters in Ohio passed a ballot issue in 2023 authorizing the cultivation, sale, and use of recreational marijuana by adults.
State legislators “have already expressed an intention to amend” state law covering recreational marijuana, the ordinance says, but have not yet clarified whether the law “will be repealed, modified, or materially altered.”
“Council has determined it to be in the best interests of the community health, safety, and welfare to impose an immediate moratorium on any cultivation, processing, or retail dispensing of recreational marijuana for adult use business purposes in any form within the City of Northwood…” the ordinance says.
The city’s moratorium doesn’t affect medical marijuana dispensaries.
In October, council - by a 4-3 vote - approved amendments to the city’s zoning regulations to accommodate recreational marijuana dispensaries. Edwards, Huntermark, Barton, and Melnyk voted for the amendments while Stoner, Kozina, and Fahrbach voted against.
But a motion introduced during the same meeting by Fahrbach to extend a moratorium that was already in effect also passed by a 4-3 vote; Barton, Fahrbach, Kozina, and Stoner voting for the moratorium and Edwards, Huntermark, and Melnyk voting against.
The Ohio Revised Code prohibits any cannabis facility from being within 500 feet of a school, church, library, playground, or park.
In November, 2023, Ohio voters approved Issue 2 to legalize the possession and use of marijuana by persons aged 21 and older, and the sale by state-licensed dispensaries.
The newly-created Ohio Division of Cannabis Control began issuing dual-use (medical/recreational) dispensary certificates in August.