Four Marijuana Store Licenses Approved in Menominee | New

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MENOMINEE — Menominee City Council on Monday approved recreational marijuana store licenses for Rize / 1st Properties and Fire Station Cannabis Co., as well as medical marijuana store licenses for Agri-Med and Attitude Wellness / Lume.

At its regular meeting, the board approved the recommendations of the Marijuana Rubric Scoring Committee in each license category.

But the process may not be over. Council member William Plemel suggested city council should provide four additional retail licenses, for a total of eight, while representatives from several companies have hinted at legal action over the approval process. subjective of the city.

Plemel specifically mentioned wanting to license Ottawa Innovations / Higher Love and Attitude Wellness / Lume to correct what some saw as oversights.

But Mayor Jean Stegeman disagreed, saying: “We can’t guess at the point allocation.”

The scoring rubric clearly states: “The decision of the selection committee regarding scoring will be final and without appealâ€. However, the city council has the right to grant or deny licenses “regardless of rating rankâ€.

“We drew up this ordinance. We all voted on it. We’ve all had a lot of time to change it, â€Stegeman said.

Stegeman said the proper procedure to change the ordinance would be left to the chairs of the Judicial and Legislative / Staff and Labor (JL / PL) Plemel Committee. “In order not to bog down this whole process and two years of work, perhaps we should, as city councilor Pohlmann pointed out, file this and bring it back to JL / PL if we want to amend this ordinance in the future. . “

But the board voted to approve the ratings and recommendations of the selection committee, voting on each recommendation individually. The board voted to recuse board member Dennis Klitzke from participating in the marijuana license vote over what could be perceived as a conflict of interest. Klitzke owns a property that is for sale and could be sold to a marijuana company. Board member Josh Jones also drew the board’s attention to his brother’s interest in a marijuana business, but Jones was allowed to participate.

The absence of Council Member Heather Nelson from the meeting was excused.

Frank Pohlmann, who cast the only dissenting vote when the board passed the marijuana ordinance earlier this year, offered to accept the selection committee’s recommendations.

“I think that approving what the selection committee did (in August) follows the long process,†Pohlmann said. “We started to discuss the ordinance. We approved the order …. I did not vote for various reasons. But we had a prescription. We then started with a selection process. In the meantime, I think we have to admit that not everything has been perfect in the process. We ourselves corrected the shortcomings we had and we completed the selection process. We are now at the point where in 180 days we could have eight operational marijuana establishments in town, â€said Pohlmann, including four retail stores, three growers and a clearinghouse.

Pohlmann suggested that most of the complaints came after the scores were announced. “Of course, when you give two licenses and you have 20 applicants, it is only normal that 18 of them, the vast majority, are very unhappy and say that everything went wrong here. It was a bad effort, “he said.” I wouldn’t want to stop this process and go back to where I started.

“If someone said it wasn’t perfect, I would say I would agree. But you might want to think about it … It doesn’t have to be perfect, â€said Pohlmann.

The board has agreed to vote individually on each of the selection committee’s recommendations. Each recommendation for a license was adopted with strong support from the board.

The city council’s approval came after months of discussions about how companies should be selected for licenses. A selection committee used the scores from an application rubric as the basis for its recommendations, but many questioned the results.

The fire station, which scored a perfect 50 points on its three applications, received approval for three licenses, but Lume / Attitude Wellness, which also scored a perfect 50 on its applications, did not. been approved only for a medical marijuana store, not an adult retail store.

Agri-Med, which applied for both recreational and medical marijuana store licenses, scored 47 points on each of its applications, but the board only granted Agri-Med a store license. of marijuana for medical purposes, based on the recommendations of the selection committee.

Rize / 1st Property Holdings, which scored 48 points for its adult store application at 3213 10th St. and 44 points for its retail store application at 2110 10th St., received council approval for the location of 3213 10th St..

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