Oxford Village’s council is moving forward with a proposed ordinance that would prohibit all types of recreational marijuana businesses so as to give planning commissioners adequate time to develop ordinance language regulating such facilities.

Last week, council voted 4-1 to set a first reading and public hearing regarding the prohibition at its Tuesday, July 9 regular meeting. Meetings begin at 6:30 p.m.

Village President Joe Frost referred to the prohibition as a “temporary” measure.

That sentiment was echoed by others on council.

“I just want to make it abundantly clear that eventually this will be repealed,” said Councilwoman Allison Kemp. “I don’t want it to appear to the voters that we’re circumventing their will.”

Last November, Michigan voters approved legalizing the growth, purchase, possession and use of recreational marijuana by adults age 21 and older.

However, voters did not mandate that municipalities be required under the new law to allow marijuana businesses within their boundaries. The ballot proposal stated it would “create a state licensing system for marijuana businesses and allow municipalities to ban or restrict them.” The new law gives villages, townships and cities a choice in the matter.

Included in the village’s proposed prohibition is a sunset clause, which gives it an expiration date of June 30, 2020.

This was added by Councilwoman Maureen Helmuth because she didn’t like the “repeal and sunset provision” language that village attorney Bob Davis had originally included.

Davis had recommended the following wording: “This ordinance shall be placed on a village council agenda for March of 2020 for consideration of repeal and the adopting of zoning ordinances to govern marijuana establishments in the Village of Oxford.”

“This is not a sunset clause,” Helmuth said.

To her, a sunset clause provides a specific date when the ordinance “is no longer in effect.” Helmuth described Davis’ proposed language as “a ‘hey, eventually, we’re going to get back to this’ clause.”

Davis told Helmuth, “I’m not going to recommend that I put you in a position with a drop-dead date (then) the drop-dead dates occurs, the prohibition is repealed, you don’t have ordinances ready, and we have a gap period where somebody could apply and do whatever they want without regard to a zoning ordinance.”

“If you want to do that, that would be against my advice,” he said.

Davis said he understands Helmuth’s concern that his language could be perceived as something that “just keeps kicking the can,” but he’s “worried about that gap period.”

“I just can’t recommend that I put you in a position where you have a potential gap period,” he said.

The proposed prohibition is something that was recommended by the planning commission in a 6-0 vote at its June 4 special meeting. This was done because the state is expected to begin accepting applications for marijuana businesses on Sept. 1, which is three months earlier than the original date of Dec. 6.

If the village does not have an ordinance in place – one that either prohibits marijuana businesses or one that regulates them – before the state begins accepting applications, “every type of license” would “automatically” be allowed in the municipality and the village would lose the ability to impose any restrictions on such establishments, according Chris Johnson, general counsel for the Michigan Municipal League.

Helmuth, who also serves on the planning commission, said it was learned at the June 4 special meeting that public hearings and action related to enacting new ordinances or amending existing ones can only take place at regular council meetings.

“We can’t have special meetings to do any of this,” she said. “It all has to be done at regular meetings.”

Given council only meets once a month on the second Tuesday, she said there just wasn’t enough time to properly craft an ordinance regulating marijuana businesses within the state’s new shorter time frame.

“In order to (adopt) this ordinance by September, we would have had to have written it that night and just been done with it, and that wasn’t going to happen,” Helmuth said.

Councilwoman Kate Logan, who voted against moving the prohibition language forward, expressed her displeasure that she had “nothing in front of (her)” regarding an ordinance to regulate marijuana businesses.

“I should be reviewing something, anything, for consideration,” she said.

Logan noted that at the April 16 joint meeting between the council and planning commission, council voted to enact a six-month moratorium on accepting or processing any applications related to marijuana businesses and directed planning commissioners to develop an ordinance framework regulating the time, place and manner of operation for these facilities.

“Here we are two months later, the pen hasn’t met the paper yet (and) all I’m hearing is that we’ve wasted a whole lot of time,” Logan said.

That concerns Logan because Davis previously told officials that during the moratorium, work must continue to be done on the issue in order to avoid potential lawsuits. Davis explained people have the right to challenge moratoriums and as part of this, they can analyze the village’s efforts during this period to determine if enough work was done.

“If somebody (made) a (Freedom of Information Act request) at this point, we’re all liable because nothing has been done,” Logan said.

“All I’m asking is why?” she said.

Both Helmuth and village Clerk Tere Onica told Logan the planning commission wanted to wait until the May 20 town hall meeting on marijuana businesses, so they could receive public input before starting work on the ordinance.

That town hall meeting was something Logan had suggested and lobbied for.

It was at that town hall meeting that village officials learned of the new Sept. 1 deadline concerning applications to the state. In light of that, Onica said two planning commissioners during that meeting asked council to consider adopting a prohibition to give them time to develop a “good ordinance.”

“There’s a lot of things to consider (with this issue) and that’s just not something you want to throw together,” Onica said.

Between the numerous revisions that would mostly likely go back and forth between the planning commission and council, conducting first and second readings, and publishing public notices in the newspaper, Onica said, “There was just no time to get it done, even had (the planning commission) started working on it already.”

“I just want to see something . . . There’s no work to show for all of these conversations,” Logan said.