BANGOR, Maine — The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to impose a six-month citywide ban of all retail cultivation and sale of recreational-purpose marijuana should voters say yes on Question 1.
The moratorium, which does not apply to medical marijuana facilities, goes into effect if voters approve on Nov. 8 a law that would allow the recreational use and growing of marijuana in Maine for people 21 and over.
The ban would prohibit retail marijuana establishments from starting before city officials could impose safeguards. Under the proposed law, municipalities can’t ban recreational use or cultivation of marijuana, but they can restrict it in several ways. The ban originally targeted just marijuana social clubs, but councilors expanded its scope.
Councilor Gibran Graham said that city and school officials would likely need to marshal their concerns about legalized recreational use to ensure proper zoning of marijuana outlets and school safety. The proposed law, Graham said, has breadth and complexity.
“If the marijuana legalization act passes next week, we are all thrust into undiscovered country,” Graham said.
Councilors opted for the moratorium despite word from Jay Nutting, a governor affairs consultant working for Maine’s Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, that no retail establishment could open within the 180-day window.
Councilors have been studying the issue since September.
Speaking before the meeting, council Chairman Sean Faircloth described the moratorium as “a safety valve that allows us to air out anything we need to discuss, to say, ‘Well, we are going to take some time and make sure we do this right before we go forward.’”
“If it is going to happen, let it happen in an orderly and regulated manner,” Councilor Joe Baldacci said before the meeting. “Obviously, we want to protect minors and young families.”
Nutting said that the recreational-use proposal gives state officials nine months to vet and write procedures for the new law. Legislators “are going to have to work diligently” to make that deadline, Nutting said.
Alaska, Nutting said, enacted its recreational-use law in November 2014 “and their first retail store opened on Saturday.”
“There is no possible way for any of these businesses to open within that 180-day window,” Nutting said. “The earliest you would see a [recreational marijuana outlet’s permit application] come before you would be a year from now.”
Assistant City Solicitor Paul Nicklas has said the city could tweak the proposed law by banning retail marijuana businesses, cultivation facilities or social clubs from Bangor; allowing the businesses only in certain industrial zones; or passing an “odor ordinance,” regulating “objectionable odors” such as marijuana.
The council has taken no position on the issue.
Brewer, Gray and Westbrook have instituted six-month moratoriums. Several other municipalities in Maine are mulling such moves. New Gloucester leaders will vote on a ban on Wednesday. Cumberland’s Town Council will vote on Nov. 14.
Arizona, California, Massachusetts and Nevada also are considering legalizing marijuana for recreational use.
Bill Shook, a member of the Bangor Area Public Health Advisory Board, told councilors on Tuesday that legalized marijuana would be “a world of trouble” to addiction-prone people.
Legalization will bring an increase in motor-vehicle crashes and drug usage among youth, Shook said, and police lack an effective means for determining driver impairment with marijuana.
“Anyone who thinks that the law will prevent marijuana from getting into the hands of adolescents any better than the present restriction on alcohol is kidding themselves,” Shook said. “Adults and adolescents are acquiring marijuana right now. Is legalizing it going to make the situation any better? I don’t think so.”
BDN writer Nick McCrea contributed to this report.