No New Vote to Limit Marijuana Business in Valley County

While Valley County currently no limitations on the types of marijuana businesses allowed, some residents of smaller communities have voiced concerns about allowing businesses to set up shop.

"My understanding was there was some concern specific to Hinsdale," County Attorney Dylan Jensen said during the regular Feb. 2 commissioner meeting. "There is no way to petition the commissioners specifically to decide whether they would put it up for a vote. They would just decide they could provide whatever mechanism they wanted for that, if they wanted to see [a certain threshold] of support. We do have the ability to zone as a county where we would ... try to address concerns that way, which is what some of the counties have done."

As of now, the commissioners have not decided to put the matter to a public vote.

"If Hinsdale was incorporated, could they put it on the ballot for the town?" asked Chairmen John Fahlgren.

"Yes," Jensen replied, "but Hinsdale is a non-incorporated community so they couldn't. Opheim itself, as the town council, could make decisions and put it to a vote, as could Nashua and Glasgow separate from the county."

The state has been "totally silent on unincorporated places," Fahlgren said. "That might be something to pursue with the legislature. It does seem like the intent of the legislature was to provide flexibility to each local municipality and just totally did not think of unincorporated areas."

Red vs. Green Counties

"This all mounts from the last time we had the initiative regarding the legalization of adult use marijuana on the ballots," Jensen said. "After that, the legislature changed things where basically they broke it down to red counties and green counties. This was the breakdown at the time of the passage of the initiative. If you were in a county like Daniels County, where it failed, they are saying it is illegal, all of the adult use business opportunities ... on their face. Whereas here in Valley County, which is a green county, there are automatically business components of the adult use marijuana are naturally legal."

There is a difference between the actual legalization of adult use marijuana and the business components of it, Jensen continued.

"They have given some power to the local governments for regulation as to the business aspect, but not the actual legal components of possessing and using. So, no matter what, in Montana whether you are a red county or a green county, if you want to use adult use marijuana within the boundaries the legislature has done, no one except for the legislature can undo that. Irrespective of the county [adults] can always use it. What they did was, for those counties that are red ... the citizens can petition to legalize components of the business aspects. These are the different aspects -- cultivation, manufacturing, adult use dispensaries, combined use dispensaries, testing labs and transporter facilities. You can vote on those piecemeal."

Some counties could limit business to cultivation and manufacturing, not allowing store front sales to occur within county lines, Jensen said.

"For the red counties, if you got enough signatures ... you could take it to the government body and get it back on the ballot. If you get the 15% of people to sign on that they want to vote to legalize, that is not discretionary to the governing body. It has to go back on the ballot. The odd thing, is if you are a green county like we are, there is not a specific petition for process, it is basically put in the laps of the governing bodies. The governing bodies can unilaterally make a decision at the municipal or county level to say, 'let's re-vote this in the next general election' without any petition process. Then, it is as simple as an up or down vote."

As an theoretical example for Valley County, "if the commissioners decided they wanted to put it back up for a vote, the county could say this time 'we don't want any of these businesses.' Then the city could go and say, 'we want to petition to put it back on in the city.' There is really no cap on how many times this can occur."

One potential solution for Hinsdale, for now, would be to enact zoning restricting marijuana businesses from operating within 1,000 feet of a church or school.

Some audience members in attendance said this would be hypocritical since there are already bars operating in the town.