Borough pushes for area-wide pot powers

JUNEAU — Several borough officials asked a state legislative committee Tuesday to grant them powers to coordinate marijuana regulations.

Mat-Su Borough attorney Nick Spiropoulos told the Legislature’s House Committee on Community affairs they favored the ability to regulate marijuana as an area-wide power, distinct from powers retained by incorporated cities, like Houston’s allowance of fireworks sales.

Borough officials view the initiative passed last November as a framework requiring specific and detailed clarification, Spiropoulos said.

“The question becomes when it comes to the marijuana regulations, do our powers extend into the cities or not?” he said.

That question arises from the fact that the initiative is written to say “local governments,” whereas the majority of Alaska code refers to different levels of government as “municipalities,” which opens a window for the Legislature to decide whether the initiative is referring to cities or boroughs, Spiropoulos said. Borough officials want to avoid a situation like Houston’s fireworks, he said.

“We have a situation where 400,000 people from Anchorage and the rest of the Mat-Su drive to Houston to buy fireworks,” he said. “It’s a non area-wide power because nobody can tell Houston what to do. The borough would want to avoid that. We would want to have some coordination and some say in what happens. I think we can work through it. But if we’re asked what the preference is for the Mat-Su, that is the preference.”

The borough sees the power primarily as a land-use and planning issue, Spiropoulos added.

The ballot initiative legalizing possession and pointing the way toward a mechanism for legal sale of marijuana failed borough-wide. It passed Palmer electorate by a narrow margin, and the Houston electorate by a much wider margin. Wasilla voted not to approve the initiative, which ultimately passed statewide. Three cities with different perspectives puts the borough in a potentially unique position in Alaska. Anchorage is one municipality. In many other places, a single borough contains a single city.

Tuesday’s committee hearing comes in the wake of a Jan. 15 Mayoral forum which solicited feed back from Mat-Su residents about the initiative, and a subsequent borough assembly meeting which saw twin resolutions passed, one establishing a committee to examine the possibilities and dilemmas arising from legalization, and the other asking the Legislature for clarification.

DeVilbiss described the Jan. 15 forum as well-behaved and engaging.

The meeting had “lots of anticipation,” he said. “It’s almost palpable. People are about three weeks away from coming out from under a cloud.”

The public also has asked for a local marijuana industry instead of an industrial or corporate industry, Mat-Su Borough Assemblyman Jim Sykes testified. Entrepreneurs considering starting marijuana businesses also are asking to provide multiple services at one location, Sykes said.

“We’ve heard a lot that the industry needs to be small, homegrown and Alaska-based,” he said. “They would like to have a vertically integrated business, where they have growing and manufacturing and processing and sales all on one location, and that may make sales for a small business.

“However, if you allow the vertical integration that allows an industrial corporation to come in, that would be a very different matter.”

The Legislature should move quickly to establish ground rules for the business to avoid the market’s subversion by illegal entrepreneurs, he said.

Palmer Mayor DeLena Johnson has said public smoking may be covered under a previously passed smoking ban in that city.

“We may want to opt out of this regulation and the borough may want to opt in,” she said. “I encourage you to think about the cities and boroughs throughout Alaska. The city may have a different opinion, and that’s important that we are able to interpret the rules for our own community.”

The Legislature shouldn’t give the borough power to overrule the wishes of Palmer voters, Johnson said.

“Our cities, if we choose to be dry, or whatever that term is going to be, then we need to be able to have that choice,” she said.

Contact Brian O’Connor at 352-2269 or brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com or on Twitter @reporterbriano.