With Kenai’s first commercial marijuana business is set to open next week, the city is reviewing their regulations and has offered helpful precautions to potential users.
City Attorney Scott Bloom reviewed Kenai’s municipal regulations at the Kenai Chamber of luncheon Wednesday. He says there’s been interest in the City Council re-evaluating the rules that are more strict than the state’s.
Bloom: “Just how we measure the buffers from the commercial marijuana businesses related to schools and churches and athletic playing fields and that sort of thing. The minimum we could go to are the state standards which is 500 feet, measured by pedestrian route, although that’s up to the council to bring forward.”
He says the city has found that its current way of measuring “as the crow flies” or in a straight line has made it difficult for potential businesses to find spaces to open in the downtown area.
Bloom also passed along advice from the Marijuana Control Board to potential users about potency of products that will be sold when retail stores open.
Bloom: “Crystals, that can be close to 100 percent THC, versus there’s things like shatter which can have a much higher potency as well as the products themselves these days, the flowers of the buds themselves can be much more potent that what people are used to. So I think it’s important if somebody were to choose to go in and buy a product from a retail store to talk to the people selling it and can anticipate what they’re getting and what effect it’ll have on them.”
Red Run Cannabis Company on the Kenai Spur Highway is set to open on Monday, November 21.