In yet another twist with marijuana in Niles Township, voters in November will have the chance to ban marijuana businesses before any get the chance to open.
The township’s November 4 ballot will contain two marijuana-related proposals. Voters can choose to repeal an ordinance the township board passed in April to allow marijuana businesses, an action the board took at the direction of voters from last November’s election. Or they can vote on a similar yet slightly different proposal to ban marijuana sales altogether.
Sound confusing? WVPE asked township Supervisor Marge Durm-Hiatt to explain but she declined an interview request.
”We’re really not doing interviews at all because there’s another lawsuit every day, so to give you information and it changes tomorrow, is kind of a moot point," Durm-Hiatt said. "We put everything that we have on our website and we keep that updated so that would be the best information, I think, that you can get.”
In passing the April ordinance to allow weed businesses, the board first tried to limit it to four shops but then removed the limitation when businesses got a court injunction finding the limits were illegal. The board then granted 21 sales permits in a short stretch of State Road 933, which triggered these citizen-led ballot proposals. Those marijuana businesses are now in the township planning process.
