Niles Township’s board Monday night approved applications for 21 new marijuana stores in a mile-and-a-half stretch of highway. Critics are calling it the Green Mile.
When Michigan voters legalized recreational weed in 2018, Niles Township’s board voted against it but township voters last year petitioned to put the issue on the ballot, and it narrowly passed.
Now, since they’re closest to the state line, where Hoosiers still aren’t allowed to buy weed, the township is poised to have far more marijuana shops than neighboring communities to the north who approved them right away.
The township board initially wanted to only allow up to four stores but when a dispensary threatened to sue, saying the law doesn’t allow such limits, the township removed them on their attorney’s advice.
Township resident Lynne Corak lives about a quarter-mile from the highway. She’s not happy.
“I have no problem if people want to smoke pot," Corak says. "The problem I have is it’s being forced down our throat with 21 of them in a mile and a half. Then you add in the six that the city of Niles has. Then you add in the ones in Buchanan and Cassopolis. There’s very few cities in Berrien County that don’t have a pot shop now. Even the little town of Eau Claire has one. That’s ridiculous.”
