Chambana Sun

At its Jan. 17 meeting  Danville City Council voted in favor of amending zoning laws to allow for three cannabis dispensaries in the city. 

Council, however, voted against granting the special use permit to Parkway Dispensary, effectively ending its proposal for a dispensary in the city. 

There is another petitioner who is looking to propose its plan for a dispensary in the city as well, although it is further behind in the planning process.

Council members were unsure of increasing the amount of dispensaries allowed in the city, especially when all three would be in the same concentrated area. They worried about over saturating the market and then having to deal with a business that closes down. 

While the state cannot mandate local zoning, it has given a limited number of cannabis dispensary licenses to prevent oversaturation of the market. There is also a state law that prevents a local municipality from blocking a cannabis zoning  for unjust reasons.

“The city has not taken a stand one way or another, except that we want to try to be compliant with the law,” city attorney James Simon said. “And as you know, the state law allowed operation of more than one of these types of wards within a certain area that was changed. The legislation has been changed multiple times. So we wanted to change our legislation to reflect that of the state. As far as expanding outside of this area, there were one or two possible other areas that we could remotely considere. Those have been offered to various entities, including the seven point group as well as the group we have before us today. And for various reasons, primarily price and or location. They were not interested because they wanted to be near the highway and proximate to the highway.”

Council received some public comment on this matter in the beginning of the meeting. Two residents came out to speak on these motions, one asking to not increase the amount of cannabis dispensaries in the area because there is a limited amount of customers that they might serve. That speaker came as a representative of one of the cannabis dispensaries slated to open in Danville in 2023. The second resident also asked the council not to increase the amount of dispensaries in the area, opposing any more marijuana in the community than there already was.

Council also discussed five appointments for various roles for the city and its committees.

The council will meet again at 6 p.m. on Thursday on 17 West Main Street.