Libby plans meeting on pot business

The Libby City Council plans to hold a public meeting with representatives of medical marijuana dispensary, Helping Center of Libby, later this month to determine whether to revoke its city business license.

“I make a motion that we send this organization a letter saying that we want at the next available date to have a discussion about suspending their license,” councilmember Bill Bischoff said at the meeting.

The motion passed unanimously with Peggy Williams absent.

The council must either amend its business license ordinance or not allow medical marijuana dispensaries within the city in order to align with the law, members of the council agreed.

Federally-unrecognized, but state-sanctioned medical marijuana businesses are not

eligible, under current city ordinance, for a business license because they do not adhere to all local, state and federal laws. The council granted the Helping Center a license before it opened its doors last month because it had listed its trade simply as a “pain clinic.”

“Pain clinic is very generic and could be many, many things,” Mayor Doug Roll said at the meeting to Rhonda McDowell-Rowen, co-director and general manager of the four Helping Center dispensaries in the region. “It could be acupuncture; it could be massage clinic. Had you put ‘medical marijuana dispensary,’ it probably would have caught some folks’ eye.”

Roll informed the council that in order to withdraw a business license, it must, according to city ordinance, have a public hearing with the business owner.

“You can’t just revoke it and say sayonara,” he said. “You have to allow them a chance to speak about how they feel about the issue.”

The council plans to meet with Helping Center representatives on Monday, Nov. 29 at 6 p.m. in council chambers to discuss the matter.

Roll appeared in favor of holding off on making a decision, as all businesses will have to renew their licenses in the new year, a mere six weeks away. He also mentioned that city attorney Heather McDougall’s contract will be up at the end of the year and that it would be prudent to wait on a decision until a new attorney is in place. In addition, he said, the state legislature may come out next year with new regulations.

“We’re talking about an issue that in six months time may change completely,” he said. “Who knows what the legislature is going to do.”

McDowell-Rowen pointed out that the dispensary in Libby is a smooth operation – no one but patients are allowed in the medicine room, marijuana is not grown on site and the medication is locked in a safe during after-hours.

Members of the council and the mayor said they didn’t question its legitimacy.

“There’s no argument about it being a legitimate business,” Roll said. “… We just have the little quirk in our business license that was put in the 1930s when they had prohibition. State law alcohol was legal, but federal law it was no longer legal. That’s where that came from and a lot of cities never took it out.”

Members of the council did not appear committed to closing down the dispensary, but did have questions as to its current location.

“Now that we have our new growth policy in place we do have the ability to zone,” councilmember Vicky Lawrence said. “Personally, I do not like the fact that you have a business like that across from a day-care center and two blocks away from our elementary school.”

Lawrence added that the interim committee that has been meeting in the state legislature about the issue has been tasked with addressing concerns of residents not opposed to medical marijuana but who wish for zoning restrictions.

Bischoff said he believed the council had to take some action so that aspects of the dispensary, such as its location, wouldn’t be grandfathered in.

“The longer we wait and allow them to operate – and we all understand you’re a legitimate business. I think the location is the biggest thing – they may get grandfathered through the legislative act because we don’t know what that bill is going to be. If we don’t take any action, we’re saying that it’s OK to operate,” he said.