DeLAND, Fla. – DeLand city commissioners on Wednesday unanimously approved a proposal to lift a ban on medical marijuana dispensaries.
Such dispensaries can now open in the same zoning districts as drugstores and pharmacies, so long as they’re at least 500 feet away from schools. The agenda item’s “fiscal impact” section posits removing the ban on medical marijuana dispensaries could provide additional business and employment to DeLand while other language therein speaks of minding residents’ health needs.
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The new ordinance also allows for medical marijuana treatment center cultivation and processing facilities within the city’s industrial zoning, or M-1, where cannabis may now be “planted, grown, harvested, dried, cured, graded, or trimmed.”
This was the second of two votes on the ordinance. The first passed 4-0 on Jan. 3 with one commissioner absent and not much discussion.
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Read the new ordinance below:
ORD NO. 2024 - 01 by Brandon Hogan on Scribd
Dispensaries had been prohibited in the city’s land development regulations since 2017, the year following Florida voters’ approval of Amendment 2 which passed with 71% of the vote and expanded on a 2014 law that only allowed low-THC cannabis for patients in a state registry. It wasn’t until 2019 that a recently sworn-in Gov. Ron DeSantis would sign a bill to repeal Florida’s ban on smokable medical marijuana.
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