Bellevue city council joined several other Northern Kentucky councils this month in grappling with the issue of whether or not to allow medical cannabis facilities within the city limits.
Medical cannabis will be legal in Kentucky starting Jan. 1, 2025, and cities and counties across Northern Kentucky have been mulling whether to allow these businesses to operate.
Each city is responsible for creating zoning regulations to make way for (or not allow) those types of businesses to operate. According to the Office of Medical Cannabis, they will be accepting applications for licenses between July 1 and Aug. 31.
Local governments have until Jan. 1 to take action on whether they want to allow businesses to operate in their cities and counties.
If a county opts not to let businesses operate, but a city within that county opts in, the bill allows businesses to operate within that city’s jurisdictional boundaries.
Across all of Kentucky, the state will issue up to 10 licenses for cannabis processors and up to 48 licenses for dispensaries. Those licenses will be issued in 11 regions across the commonwealth.
Each region will initially be granted at least four dispensary licenses, but no more than one dispensary can be located in each county – the exceptions being Kentucky’s two largest counties, Jefferson and Fayette. Medical cannabis will be legal in the state effective Jan. 1, 2025. Each individual city is responsible for creating the zoning regulations to make way or not allow those types of businesses to operate; however, if cities do not have those regulations in place by June 30, the state can begin issuing licenses, and if those businesses start operations, they will be grandfathered against any future regulation.
Bellevue Mayor Charlie Cleves introduced the subject at the city’s June 12 council meeting.
“Personally, I am for medical marijuana, for having it for people with those 21 diseases they list on their website, but I am not for us retailing it in Bellevue. It’s just not the look that I want to see on Fairfield Avenue in our historic business district,” he said.
Cleves said former banks, designed for security, might be very attractive to a medical cannabis business. There are two empty bank buildings on Fairfield Avenue.
Still, he continued, it was up to council to discuss the matter and decide what to do.
City Administrator Frank Warnock opened the discussion by outlining options for the city’s response. He noted the city could decide to allow it, deny it, or let the voters within the city decide. If the latter was chosen, the city would need to act fast to meet the deadline to get the issue on the ballot.
Council member Ryan Salzman said he favored letting voters decide.
“I’m inclined to send it to the voters,” Salzman said. “I have my feeling on it and I would get to register my vote that day along with everybody else. So rare in the commonwealth of Kentucky to be able to send something directly to the voters. And so, when I heard that it was an option, my guttural reaction was to send it to the voters.”
Council member Mike Almoslechner agreed.
“We vote on this, we vote on that,” he said. “We pass ordinances here. [The voters], of course, can come and talk about them, but they don’t really vote, so I’d be in favor of putting it up to the citizens to decide.”
Addressing the mayor’s concern about location of the a business, council member Shauna Kraus said the city could have control through zoning.
“I would like to add that, along with this resolution to send it to the voters, Frank has prepared a text amendment to look at the zoning of it,” she said.
Council is looking at a potential zoning amendment for vape shops and, she said, the medical cannabis dispensaries might be treated similarly.
“There are options like that to look at the types of businesses for zoning purposes, so Fifth Third Bank might not become a medical marijuana station,” Kruse said. “There are options to manage that. I just want to point that out as well. If the voters do decide on something like that, city council would be taking it up to planning and zoning to look at the best options.”
City council voted unanimously to authorize the city administrator to put the question of allowing or prohibiting medical cannabis businesses within the city of Bellevue to be placed on the ballot for the upcoming election.
Council also approved a resolution to authoriz the city administrator to submit a text amendment application to the Campbell County Municipal Planning and Zoning administration to make recommendations and for the city’s planning commission to review and consider regulations in the zoning ordinance related to vape businesses. A similar amendment for medical cannabis would be considered if it is passed in November.