Borough puts the brakes on pot businesses

WASILLA — Valley residents won’t be able to buy legal marijuana in unincorporated areas of the Mat-Su Borough until voters decide the issue at the polls.

The borough assembly voted 7-0 Tuesday to enact a short-term ban on marijuana sales in areas outside the city limits of Palmer, Wasilla and Houston. The ban, as originally proposed by assemblymen Randall Kowalke, was designed to postpone legal commercial marijuana until Oct. 19 certification of the Oct. 4 election results. However, a last minute amendment to the ban means as it sits now, a ban on commercial marijuana cultivation will go into effect only until August, though that will come back for reconsideration at the next assembly meeting said Assemblyman Jim Sykes.

“The way I’ve been approaching it, I thought it was better originally, if we’re going to stretch it out to have one single deadline,” Sykes said.

Sykes said public testimony by would-be marijuana entrepreneurs convinced him a more flexible approach would limit the damage caused by a potential voter-enacted local marijuana sales ban, by allowing Mat-Su-grown marijuana to be sold at markets in Houston (the only municipality in the borough to allow pot sales) and elsewhere in the state. However, unresolved land use issues — the borough is trying to limit the exposure of commercial marijuana in predominantly residential neighborhoods without formal zoning powers — and issues involving background checks at the state level mean most marijuana businesses wouldn’t be ready for an August start.

Borough staff member Alex Strawn said zoning laws wouldn’t be in place in time for the August date, but by then, the moratorium had already passed, Sykes said.

Kowalke said numerous issues remain with commercial marijuana, which may require more time than the assembly has to deal with them before voters decide the issue.

“If we don’t have it settled in the initiative, then we’re going to end up kicking the can down the street,” he said. “The residential question is huge. If this August date, which is the new date now, we don’t have everything in place again, then it’s going to be a situation where we’re going from assembly meeting to assembly meeting for the next two months. I thought going to October would give us a full time window to get goals accomplished.”

Assemblyman Matthew Beck has filed for reconsideration.

Opponents of a Big Lake gravel pit also convinced assembly members to oppose expansion of Lakeside Sand and Gravel. An Interim Materials District that would have allowed 750,000 cubic feet of gravel to be removed from the site over 30 years failed by a 6-1 vote. Big Lake assemblyman Dan Mayfield cast the lone dissenting vote.

The central issue behind the pit was whether or not it conformed the Big Lake comprehensive plan. Borough staff said it didn’t, and the planning commission ultimately could not agree on whether it did or not.

Mayfield helped draft the original comprehensive plan, and said the decision wasn’t as clear-cut as borough staff made it sound. For example, the comprehensive plan also identified a need for roads and economic development, Mayfield said.

“When the original interim materials district request went to planning, planning made the decision that the request for the district was not consistent with the comprehensive plan,” he said. “While I can certainly understand why they might say that, denying that (district) was inconsistent with the comprehensive plan, also.”

The next borough assembly meeting was set for Thursday evening in Willow.

Contact reporter Brian O’Connor at 352-2270, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.