The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly voted in favor of introducing an ordinance last night that will speed up the licensing process for marijuana cultivators this summer so they can begin growing.
Homer Assemblywoman Kelly Cooper sponsored the laydown item that would waive the 60 day borough comment period that follows the approval of pot cultivation licenses by the Alcohol & Marijuana Control Office.
Asmb. Cooper: “There are four [local] cultivators which are considered complete, but if we don’t exercise our waiver that’s in our code, they may not be issued a license until July. The Marijuana Control Board is tentatively scheduled to meet again in July but they haven’t set that date yet. So if these folks can’t get their plants in the ground, they miss that whole season.”
State regulations require that plants are tracked on their journey from seed to product.
Cooper says she worries that if local cultivators aren’t allowed to get going during Alaska’s short summer, product will be brought in from other areas.
Asmb. Cooper: “They would still have to comply with all the other requirements of the ordinances that we’ve put in place, as well as the state. It would be for the first year so next year it would go back to normal it’s just been a horrible delay for that industry.”
The ordinance will be up for public testimony at the June 7 meeting.