The Prince George’s County Council passed new restrictions aimed at limiting where cannabis dispensaries can operate. But one state lawmaker from a neighboring jurisdiction is unhappy with the new ordinance and the council that passed it. The county law might not stand for very long anyway.
The bill that passed in Largo this week is somewhat of a middle ground between a faction that sees the economic intent of the legalization of cannabis — empowering minority business owners who stand to get rich off the licenses to sell those products — and one that is wary of dispensaries and wanted to banish them to industrial areas in the county. In the end, the council didn’t go that far.
Technically, dispensaries can be permitted in industrial and commercial areas, though restrictions, including one that prohibits dispensaries within 2,000 feet of a liquor store, add hurdles to a n already difficult process.
As it is, many commercial shopping centers won’t lease to dispensaries because their financing prohibits them, since at the federal level, this is still considered an illegal drug. But ahead of the vote earlier this week, Eddie Pounds, an Annapolis-based lobbyist who represents a handful of cannabis licensees, explained some of the additional difficulties his clients have been dealing with in the county.
“It’s a local cannabis dispensary operator that has been looking for a site to locate its dispensary in Prince George’s County for more than two years now. In fact, they’ve looked at over 200 sites and have struck out each time for various reasons, primarily due to zoning restrictions,” said Pounds at a council meeting on Tuesday, who nevertheless applauded the approval of the new law after seeing previous proposals.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by John Domen over at WTOP
