By Matt Mackinder
Clarkston News Editor

Clarkston City Council held a special meeting Sept. 6 with the lone agenda item to discuss the upcoming Nov. 8 ballot item of two medical marijuana facilities within city limits.
The Clarkston Cares group has been advocating to put two shops in town. Back on Aug. 17, council met for another special meeting to consider appealing an Aug. 16 court decision that would allow a referendum on the Nov. 2022 ballot authorizing two retail medical marijuana facilities in the city.
After a closed session for an attorney-client discussion, council returned to open session and voted unanimously to authorize City Attorney Tom Ryan to immediately file an appeal before the ballots are printed.
After the Sept. 6 meeting, unanimous approval was made to keep the proposal on the ballot but with “explanatory language.”
That added notation reads: “This amendment would authorize (2) provisioning centers within the City and create regulations for the facilities by adding a new Chapter 16 to the City Charter. Further, this provision would authorize marihuana facilities to operate between the hours of 9 AM to 9 PM Monday through Sunday. It would not permit recreational marihuana sales to any adult but does allow Commercial Medical Marihuana sales under the Medical Marihuana Facilities Licensing Act to qualified patients.”
The motion was made by Al Avery and seconded by Gary Casey, with all councilmembers in favor.
When asked about pros and cons to this amendment, Clarkston City Manager Jonathan Smith responded.
“A pro for adding an explanatory caption would be simply that were giving the voters additional information on which to base their decision,” Smith said. “I can’t think of any cons.”
Clarkston resident Susan Bisio added her take on the situation on her website ClarkstonSecrets.com.
“I would urge the planning commission and city council to work on an ordinance for recreational marijuana,” wrote Bisio. “This ordinance could honor all of the city’s other ordinances, including the zoning ordinance, and could limit the number of facilities to one. The council could even make passage of the ordinance contingent on voter approval if they wanted. They also aren’t required to give any priority to businesses holding medical marijuana licenses, and if the medical marijuana license holders aren’t selected, it’s fairly certain they will go out of business – because why do you want to bother with the time and expense to get a prescription for medical marijuana when you can just walk into a recreational seller and buy marijuana without the hassle?
“I don’t care if people use marijuana. I voted to legalize it. I also don’t care if there’s a tasteful recreational marijuana business in Clarkston, as long as the parking issues are addressed and it’s not in the residential areas of the city. I do care about sneaky, undisclosed groups using a ton of lawyers and coming into my city to screw around with my city’s charter and forcing us to live with them forever, whether we like it or not.
“Don’t just vote no. Vote HELL NO.”