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The city has yet to schedule dates for those appeals.Īric Klar, co-owner of Quality Roots in Hamtramck and Battle Creek, said that while the situation in Berkley is still a bit of an unknown, he's excited and hopeful Quality Roots will still nab a license there. In the next step of the process that's moving ahead, applicants can appeal their numbers with the hearing officer the city hired, meaning the scores listed are not necessarily final. On the city's scoring rubric, offering community benefits is worth 11 points, green infrastructure is 12 and demonstrating the ability to successfully operate a cannabis business is 26. Quality Roots had the highest score at 310. One of the companies that has sued, Yellow Tail Ventures, ranked sixth, with a score 17 points below that of Lume Cannabis Co., the third in line with a score of 301. That's the case the second time around, too, according to results listed on the city's website. When Berkley scored applicants the first time and released results in September, the top three businesses were Quality Roots Inc., Operation Grow and Lume Cannabis Co., according to court documents. The window to apply originally opened in March 2020, but the pandemic delayed the period to June 15-29.Ĭannabis enterprises in Berkley are limited by city ordinance to recreational and/or medical retail, meaning there will be no consumption lounges, businesses that host events where attendees can partake, or growing or processing centers. Applications had originally been scored privately by a group of city officials. But Poles did rule with plaintiffs that the process had violated open meeting laws.
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Judge Yasmine Poles ultimately allowed the merit-based evaluation system to proceed free and clear, which is why it's moving forward now. Nearly 50 Oakland County municipalities have completely opted out. Another 1,397 localities, or 78 percent of them, have acted to opt out and ban recreational cannabis sellers altogether.īerkley is among just five Oakland County municipalities to pass rules restricting cannabis business licenses. As of June 30, 106 municipalities had created their own rules restricting these businesses, according to the state Marijuana Regulatory Agency. Cities have automatically become legal ground for recreational business unless they act and notify the state otherwise.Ĭities have three choices when it comes to adult-use: block businesses from setting up do nothing and, effectively, allow them to set up wherever or allow them but with restrictions. While Michigan's 1,773 cities, townships and other municipalities must actively opt in to set up rules for and allow medical marijuana businesses, it's not the same with adult-use. The state governs medical and recreational cannabis differently. Those include using green infrastructure, reusing existing buildings and demonstrating "benefits to the community." They argued the city needed to choose based on which applicants comply with state cannabis regulations, not who would do certain specific things aimed at improving the city. That led to a preliminary injunction halting Berkley's cannabis retail licensing in December. The legal battle started when companies not in the top three filed two lawsuits in November in Oakland County Circuit Court against the city, City Council and several officials including City Manager Matthew Baumgarten. They filed June 28, according to the Michigan Court of Appeals website. And competition is steep: 31 businesses applied for a total of three licenses available to those with the three highest scores.Īnother kind of appeal that's looming in the background, though, could portend yet more delays or changes for a regulatory process that's still in the works three years after Michigan voters legalized recreational cannabis.Ĭompanies that sued the city, including Yellow Tail Ventures Inc., 123 Ventures LLC and Nature's Remedy of Berkley LLC, are appealing their case. That happened July 14, and now the city has moved on to the appeals piece of its local ordinance - meaning the businesses that don't think the results are fair can push back. The catch, though, is that it had to redo its scoring process publicly so that it complied with the Open Meetings Act. Berkley is in the clear - for now - to curate the kind of cannabis development it wants planted within its borders.Ī judge sided with Berkley in recent litigation over whether its merit-based system for scoring applicants for three cannabis business licenses is legal under state law.
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