Covington took its first steps towards allowing medical cannabis facilities in the city Tuesday night after the Covington Board of Commissioners completed the first reading of an ordinance regulating such businesses in the city. The commission will perform a second reading and cast a vote on the regulations in August.
The ordinance was not on the agenda; it followed a presentation from City Manager Ken Smith, who went over the areas in the city where businesses could potentially set up shop. At the end of his presentation, Smith recommended the commission begin the process of regulating cannabis businesses, and the motion to add the ordinance to the agenda and perform a first reading passed unanimously.
The legalization of medical cannabis in Kentucky came about on March 31, 2023, when Gov. Andy Beshear signed Senate Bill 47 into law. The law, which takes effect on Jan. 1, 2025, enabled the regulation of medical marijuana statewide and established the administration of such regulation under the Cabinet for Health and Family Services and the newly-established Kentucky Medical Cannabis Program.
The law established five kinds of allowable facilities: cultivating centers where the cannabis would be grown, processing facilities where the plants are refined for medical use, hybrid facilities where both cultivation and processing would take place, dispensaries and safety facilities where products are tested to ensure they’re safe to use.
The first round of licensing will see the issuance of 11 processing licenses and 48 dispensary licenses across Kentucky, numbers that will increase in the coming years as the state gets more used to regulating the businesses. Those licenses will be distributed throughout the commonwealth’s 11 area development districts. No more than one dispensary license per county will be issued in this first round.
Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties have already banned the establishment of medical cannabis businesses county-wide, but regulations at the city level can override the prohibition.
“This will allow cities to proactively opt-in, but this will also allow everyone else to stay out if they choose to,” Kenton County Judge/Executive Kris Knochelmann said during the Kenton County Fiscal Court meeting on July 9, where the ban was passed.
Knochelmann explained that the county’s rationale was to give each city ample time to make its own judgments.
If a city decides to send the issue to the ballot this November, they have to file the necessary paperwork by Aug. 13. Zoning regulations must be established by Jan. 1, 2025, when businesses are legally allowed to begin operating, or else the county ban applies.
Several cities in the region, such as Independence, Bellevue and Florence, have already voted to send the issue to the ballot in November. Erlanger and Dayton are in the process of establishing city zones to regulate the businesses, whereas Union has voted to prohibit them. Decisions vary across other cities in the region.
Although Covington is in the county’s urban core and intuitively the most likely place the county would have a dispensary, Smith contended that there actually weren’t that many spaces in the city where a dispensary could go.
He recommended folding the different business types into the city’s existing business categories as established by ordinance rather than making new categories. Under this suggestion, the city would categorize a dispensary as a pharmacy, meaning one could open wherever a pharmacy could also open. The issue, Smith said, is that dispensaries cannot open within 1,000 feet of a school or a daycare. This limited the number of spaces where one could conceivably appear.
“I guess the takeaway is that there aren’t a lot of spots in Covington where a dispensary can locate,” Smith said.
He projected a series of maps onto the screen in the commission chambers, which highlighted different areas where a dispensary might go. The maps, he said, were preliminary and not exhaustive—there may have been some daycares and schools he missed—but they gave a broad picture of where a business might end up.
Preliminary Central business district map: Pink areas indicate where a dispensary could go. Red dots and green circles indicate 1000-foot boundaries of a school or daycare, where a dispensary cannot legally operate. Map provided | The City of Covington 
Preliminary Westside map: Pink areas indicate where a dispensary could go. Red dots and green circles indicate 1000-foot boundaries of a school or daycare, where a dispensary cannot legally operate. Map provided | The City of Covington 
Preliminary Latonia map: Pink areas indicate where a dispensary could go. Red dots and green circles indicate 1000-foot boundaries of a school or daycare, where a dispensary cannot legally operate. Map provided | The City of Covington 
Preliminary South Covington map: Pink areas indicate where a dispensary could go. Red dots and green circles indicate 1000-foot boundaries of a school or daycare, where a dispensary cannot legally operate. Map provided | The City of Covington 
Preliminary New Hands Pike map: Pink areas indicate where a dispensary could go. Red dots and green circles indicate 1000-foot boundaries of a school or daycare, where a dispensary cannot legally operate. Map provided | The City of Covington
“I wanted to make sure that you all [the commissioners] and the public at large understands that if medical cannabis is approved, we’re not going to have corner medical cannabis dispensaries throughout the city,” Smith said.
This point was affirmed by commission member Steve Hayden.
“It’s not like it’s a head shop or something,” Hayden said. “It’s behind closed doors, and they cannot sell anything else at all, not even a pack of chewing gum.”
Smith argued that regulation was a good idea for two reasons. First, if put to a vote, he thought the residents would likely vote to allow it anyway. Second, he argued that waiting for a ballot initiative could leave prospective businesses “in limbo,” as he put it.
“It would be exceedingly difficult for someone to be up and running [by Jan. 1],” Smith said. “They would have to invest money in a business that may not be legal after November’s election.”
There was some discussion among the commissioners about the details, and some thought that the commission may need to make some tweaks to the city’s existing zoning regulations. In the end, however, decisions on that matter were put off to future meetings.
Toward the end of the meeting, Smith told the commission: “I want to point out I did not make one single pun tonight, and I did not get into the weed–” he corrected himself quickly, “weeds!”
The Covington Board of Commissioners will not meet for the remainder of July. Their next meeting will take place on Tuesday, Aug. 6 at 6 p.m. at Covington City Hall on Pike Street.
Kenton Hornbeck also contributed reporting to this story.