Dear Village of Oxford Councilpersons:
I, Ron Renaud of Addison Township, would like to encourage you to VOTE NO on granting any marijuana business licenses anywhere in the Oxford community.
It does not help the community and would be a burden to the Village’s financial well-being as the Fees and Excise tax that would be collected would not defray the costs of the rise in law enforcement needed, the health care needs of people injured by the products if taken, or the damage to the reputation of the village as a quaint, sweet, friendly, and beautiful village that people want to come to live.
I have done some of the legwork on the possibilities of revenue from these operations. If you take the last year’s projected sales of $450 million in Michigan, the state collects the 10% or $45 million and then pulls out their costs of implementation (estimation of $5 million) then you must Minus the First $20 Million that brings it down to $20 million, then there will be 15% to municipalities in which a marihuana retail store or a marihuana microbusiness is located, allocated in proportion to the number of marihuana retail stores and marihuana microbusinesses within the municipality.
So that brings us to $3 million to be SHARED with all municipalities. If you take the current number of sales locations and growers in the state that is approximately 500 that equates to $6,000 of Excise tax per location (if all locations are treated equally, but they are not, as the municipalities that have more locations within their boundaries get more per location). Let’s go with the $6,000 per location and per year. Say you approve 3 locations that’s $18,000. Right? With a $5,000 Annual Fee for each marihuana establishment in the municipality. (How many are you planning to have here? As the Act does not say you can charge the individuals a License fee it is a “marijuana establishment” fee.) Plus, the $15,000 from the licenses that equals = $33,000.
For $33,000 you are going to have to add two officers to your police department to enforce the laws that will be broken by selling to minors, sales outside of the regulated area, usage in wrong areas, etc. etc. etc. And you will also have to add the costs of implementation and operation of the licensing, the enforcement of the licenses by inspections and other expenses. Not to mention the effects on the Children and Adults that may experience depression, abuse, suicide that adds costs to your health supports of EMS and FIRE.
There are many pitfalls to this, and I’ve only mentioned a few, but I hope you see that this is not something that should be considered as a benefit to the Village of Oxford, as it is NOT.
It just does not add up to an advantage for the Village of Oxford or the Oxford community as a whole.
Hopefully each one of you have reviewed the Municipal guide: at
michigan.gov/documents/mra/MRA_Municipal_Guide_705502_7.pdf
Thanks for your willingness to consider the consequences of having this in our Oxford community and please act accordingly by disallowing the industry to be in it and VOTE NO on the ordinance.
Many kind regards,
Ron Renaud
Addison Township