Five months after voters approved marijuana dispensaries for Niles Township, the township board is ready to vote on making the stores a reality.
For years now there have been dispensaries along M-51, or 11th Street, the highway that connects South Bend and Niles. But elected officials for Niles Township, which runs from Fulkerson Road south to the state line, had prohibited the stores.
But township voters took the matter into their own hands in the November election, reversing the board. Later that month the board voted to allow only four stores, and you had to own at least 150 feet of highway frontage.
But a marijuana firm won a legal injunction against the board, arguing that it didn’t have the right to impose the frontage size restriction.
So now Township Supervisor Marge Durm-Hiatt says the board will vote Monday, April 21 on a final ordinance that doesn’t limit the number of dispensaries or mention highway frontage.
"Pretty much our attorney said if you limit it, you will have lawsuits, because we've got, probably 20 people, waiting at the bit to come in and apply," Durm-Hiatt said. "And if we were only going to allow four, I wasn't the one who wanted to decide which four get them. I think the majority of the board decided, let the dispensaries fight it out."
