Newark eyes tight restrictions on where marijuana dispensaries can open

Newark is considering tight restrictions on where recreational marijuana dispensaries can open within the city.

Council members were sharply divided Monday night on whether dispensaries should even be allowed in Newark, but it appears there is a slim majority in favor of allowing dispensaries to open on the outskirts of town, with strict conditions.

“It shouldn’t be on anything that we name Main Street, or Delaware Avenue,” Mayor Jerry Clifton said. “The central business district should be off-limits.”

When the state legislature legalized marijuana last year, it gave cities and towns the ability to regulate where — and if — dispensaries can open within municipal borders. (Towns cannot, however, pass their own regulations regarding the use or possession of marijuana.)

The state is still developing regulations, and the opening of the first dispensary is still several months away, but city planner Mike Fortner told council that now is the time to start thinking about how Newark wants to regulate dispensaries.

There are three main options, Fortner explained. One is make no changes to city code, which would mean that dispensaries would be treated the same as any other retail shop and would be allowed in most commercial areas.

The second option is to ban dispensaries completely, as Middletown and some of the beach towns have done. That would likely result in dispensaries opening just outside Newark’s borders with the city having no ability to regulate them, Fortner said.

The third option is to add marijuana dispensaries as a conditional use in certain commercial or industrial zoning districts, meaning that each prospective business would be required to petition city council for a special-use permit. The permit could be denied if council determined that the dispensary would be a detriment to the community.

This approach would treat dispensaries similar to bars, which already require a special-use permit.

If a particular location is problematic, council could deny the special-use permit. The city could also establish a procedure for suspending or revoking the permit if the business causes crime or code enforcement issues, similar to how bars are treated.

Council could also impose additional conditions, such as restricting how late a dispensary can stay open, restricting how close to a school, library or church a dispensary can be located, or banning signage that contains marijuana imagery. It could even cap the number of dispensaries allowed in Newark or require them to be a certain distance from each other.

During a lengthy discussion Monday, council members were split as to which option they preferred.

Council members Corinth Ford, Travis McDermott and John Suchanec advocated for an out-right ban on dispensaries.

“I don’t want it in Newark, period,” Ford said. “I’ll tell you that right now.”

Councilman Travis McDermott, who works as a police officer for New Castle County and has spent much of his career in drug enforcement, agreed.

“You can say we don’t want people to be arrested for simple possession of marijuana and we don’t want law enforcement spending time enforcing these laws. That’s a completely understandable issue,” McDermott said. “But that does not mean because I support that, that I support living next door to a marijuana store.”

He said it doesn’t make sense to allow marijuana sales in a college town that already deals with issues related to college parties and students who make “questionable decisions about their behavior in our community.”

He added that the Newark Police Department will spend time enforcing marijuana rules and policing dispensaries, yet all the tax revenue from the sale of marijuana will go to the state, meaning that the city would derive no benefit from allowing dispensaries.

Suchanec said he can’t support allowing any dispensaries.

“In this town, with the potential number of marijuana smokers, I would be a hard no,” Suchanec said.

Councilman Jay Bancroft was the most receptive to allowing dispensaries, as long as they get a special-use permit.

“It doesn’t make sense to get too far astray from what other jurisdictions are doing,” Bancroft said.

Clifton, along with council members Dwendolyn Creecy and Jason Lawhorn, aimed for the middle ground, voicing support for allowing dispensaries only in certain parts of town.

“I have seen too many of my people locked up for nothing over a little bit of marijuana,” Creecy said, adding that she knows family members who have experienced health benefits from using marijuana.

She did, however, express some concerns about dispensaries opening too close to the university campus.

“I’m not really for it being so close to the college and to our residents, but maybe like right on the outskirts,” she said.

Lawhorn said he would only support dispensaries in industrial areas, and even then only in areas that can accommodate the traffic that the businesses would generate.

“I don’t have a problem with having them in city limits, but I don’t want them on Main Street and I don’t want them in Fairfield Shopping Center,” Lawhorn said.

With four of the seven council members in support of allowing recreational marijuana sales in at least certain areas, city staffers will draft legislation setting up a special-use permit system for dispensaries. The exact areas where they will be allowed remains to be determined.

Officials will also draft similar legislation allowing indoor marijuana cultivation, marijuana product manufacturing and testing of marijuana. Most council members, even those who oppose dispensaries, support those types of facilities as long as they are restricted to industrial areas.

Council will then hold a public hearing and vote on the legislation at a later date.

None of the laws being considered would affect the existing Fresh Delaware medical marijuana facility on Ogletown Road, though the business would likely require a special-use permit to sell to recreational users if it chooses to do so.