CALUMET — In a report of the Village Planning Commission to the Village Council on Oct. 19, Commission Chairwoman Colleen Kobe said that in the new Zoning Ordinance, neither marijuana manufacture nor sales appear as regulated use anywhere in the village, because of spacial limitations imposed by the state after the question of marijuana legalization passed by popular vote in 2018.

Marijuana, or cannibis, for therapeutic purposes were legalized in 2008. Pot use for recreational purposes was passed in 2018. Its licensed sales started in 2019, but under Michigan law, each municipality has the right to allow or restrict recreational pot sales. Many cities and villages have done that. Within the village of Calumet, however, state-established exclusion zones prevent the village, due to its size, from permitting pot sales or manufacture.

“The village of Calumet is too small to allow marijuana businesses and respect the buffer zones specified by the state of Michigan,” Kobe told the council.

Certain businesses and organizations require buffer zones around them that do not allow marijuana sales or other transactions within those buffer zones, she explained. For example, schools require a buffer zone of 1,000 feet in all directions. A 500-foot buffer zone around residences is required by state law.

“There was a time when we thought the Light Industrial District would be acceptable,” Kobe said. “But on closer inspection, it is plain that there are only eight parcels in that district, and all are within 500 feet of a residence.

Marijuana is regulated by the state, Kobe added, and the village has no one to ensure the laws are being obeyed.

“Calumet is so small,” she said, “if you look on a map, if you start drawing circles around the places — even in the Light Industrial District, which is where we were hoping to put marijuana, there are only nine properties there and several of them are houses — people live there.”

Council Trustee Rob Tarvis said that in 2018, 62% of the residents voted for recreational marijuana.

“This is what voters wanted in the village,” he said. “You know, 62% is a lot.”

Trustee Elise Matz reasoned that while village residents may have voted for recreational use marijuana in Michigan, that does not mean they wanted it in their village. Kobe reiterated that the village is geographically too small to allow it, and suggested that those who wanted marijuana could purchase it in Houghton.

Village Manager Amber Goodman responded to a question, saying that she has had a number of calls in regards to the marijuana issue.

Kobe asked how many of the people demanded marijuana shops in Calumet live in the village.

Tarvis countered that without marijuana, the village is missing out on a lot of money, and in his opinion marijuana is less harmful than alcohol.

“I would also add, though,” Kobe pointed out, “that last year, the issue did go to the Village Council and it did not pass. So, even if the people want it, if it doesn’t pass in the Village Council, it’s not going to pass.”

Planning Commissioner Virginia Dwyer pointed out that if a marijuana ordinance was to pass, and the village could collect $5,000 for each application submitted, the village must also report to the state how that money was spent. And with the village lacking a police department, neither the Houghton County Sheriff’s Office, or the Michigan State Police Calumet Post will respond to complaints of civil infractions or code violations, but only to criminal complaints.

“So, if you take on these things,” Dwyer warned, “you are saying that you have a police force that’s going to monitor this; you’re going to have to tell the state how you spent your $5,000, and you have nothing to monitor (any of it).”

Dwyer summed up the shortcomings of the village in regards to marijuana. First, she said, while 62% of the village residents may indeed have voted to legalize marijuana in Michigan, the village has never placed the issue on a ballot for the village to decide for itself what it wants.

Second, she said, while she was on the Village Council when the marijuana issue was causing public disturbances on village streets, very few of the people who came to council meetings to demand marijuana shops were residents of the village. Third, the council needs to determine how property taxes in the village would be effected by marijuana shops being present in the boundaries, and there are still more questions than answers.

“We’re trying to make this easy,” Dwyer said. “We feel like we’re being pushed into doing this by people who don’t even live here. The village has no law enforcement. The village has no code enforcement.”

“I would like to add,” said Kobe, “that last year, the Planning Commission had to put everything else aside in order to address what was suddenly a very hot topic, adding marijuana to the Zoning Ordinance.”

The Commission, she said went through a lot of work creating two new zoning ordinances, because initially, there were no ordinances. Then, there was a public hearing, then there was the Village Council debate and vote, and the motion failed, for lack of a quorum.

“I really have a problem with going through all that again,” she said, “because we still have to deal with the items that we didn’t deal with a year ago.”

Kobe said that in the absence of an actual vote of the village, she is not convinced that the majority of the residents want marijuana in their village.

The Planning Commission has scheduled a public hearing for the new Zoning Ordinance, without mentioning either short-term rentals, or marijuana, for Thursday, Nov. 18, at 5:30 p.m.