A Soldotna City Council ordinance along with a lengthy amendment to it, both pertaining to marijuana use, failed last night.
The ordinance, which had previously been postponed, prohibited the use of marijuana in “public” and vehicles, as well as made the Soldotna City Council the local authority on marijuana regulation.
After a work session to define “public” on Monday, Councilor Keith Baxter made an amendment which stripped the ordinance of where marijuana could be used, saying it was redundant to state regulations.
Cm. Baxter: “My amendment was kind of a contingency measure on my part, because if it were to pass, I wanted it to be something I could vote for, so my amendment took everything that was redundant to the emergency regulations out and only left the part that made the Soldotna City Council the local regulatory authority, because I thought that would be useful, but that is not a time-sensitive thing. We could do that with a different action.”
During council discussion the subject of marijuana use in vehicles not being covered by the state regulations so far was questioned but Baxter said he feels that is already pretty much a well known law.
Cm. Baxter: “Obviously, there shouldn’t be any driving under the influence or driving while intoxicated and people in Alaska have gotten driving under the influence or driving while intoxicated citations for things other than alcohol for years.So I’m confident that we don’t need a new city ordinance to continue to enforce that common sense enforcement about, ‘you need to be sober when you drive.'”
The amendment failed due to not garnering at least four votes and the ordinance in its entirety failed with three votes no and two yes.