Temporary Medical Marijuana Ordinance Approved

Temporary Medical Marijuana Ordinance Approved

Tonight, the Pierre City Commission passed a temporary medical marijuana permitting plan.

The plan states that the city will neither license nor permit medical cannabis establishments until the State of South Dakota has promulgated its medical cannabis rules. The state's rules are expected to be complete the end October at which time the city will come back with a permanent ordinance.

'We remain in the holding pattern until the state rule book is written,' said Kristi Honeywell, City Administrator. 'Until then, we need to have something on the books that explains our position and short-term plan.'

In anticipation of the decriminalization of medical marijuana on July 1, the city commission also made adjustments to other related local ordinance.

First, the city repealed a section of ordinance that talked about the sale of cannabis paraphernalia.

'Current ordinance talks about needing a license to sell marijuana accessories, record keeping related to those sales, and how that type of merchandise can be displayed,' said Honeywell. 'That ordinance will be irrelevant under the new state medical marijuana laws.'

The city also added violation language to its general business licensing rules.

'We have no penalties in place for businesses that misuse their licenses. In the event there is some sort of license violation, this will give us some teeth to enforce our local rules,' said Honeywell.

Those teeth include a fine of up to half the license fee per day or $2,500 per day if no fee is established, as well as suspension of operating privileges.

The temporary ordinance is effective upon June 19 publication. The two other ordinance changes go into effect July 9.

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