Green Jar gets Planning Commission approval

PALMER — The three co-owners of what was about to become the Mat-Su Valley’s first recreational marijuana dispensary outside of Houston burst into cheers and celebration upon getting their approval from the borough’s Planning Commission Monday night.

The announcement to grant a permit to Green Jar, which will be located at 4901 E. Blue Lupine Drive, Suite E, within Township 17 North, Range 1 East, Section 17, Seward Meridian, was the culmination of a long and often frustrating process, and the hugs and congratulations from friends who’d accompanied them to the meeting, was born as much in relief as in triumph.

“We started our application Feb. 24 of last year. Our license number is 1008, so I was about 7 minutes into the first applications going out… so it’s been a pretty long road for Green Jar,” said co-owner Caleb Saunders. “It was definitely frustrating at times, because we had the (borough-wide prohibition) vote show up, and because of the moratorium (leading up the vote), the state would no longer look at locations. The vote did quite a bit of damage to us.”

Houston, having been the only Mat-Su municipality to vote for marijuana, was not held up in the process by the moratorium imposed by the borough pending the outcome of the Oct. 4 vote on whether to prohibit such businesses. The public voted by nearly a 2 to 1 margin against borough-wide prohibition.

Saunders said Green Jar hopes to be up and running by the end of the month. The biggest hold-up at this point is getting a hold of supply.

“We’re hoping to be open two weeks from now, but we still have the state inspections to do,” Saunders said. “I don’t want to make a target date for opening until I know I have my inspection done and license in hand.”

Not all prospective marijuana vendors were so lucky Monday night.

Bad Gramm3r was seeking a conditional use permit for its prospective shop on 1150 N. Helen Lane, a request that dated all the way back to Oct. 3, 2016.

Once again its pursuit of an up-or-down vote was shelved because the Planning Commission could not assemble a quorum after chairperson Colleen Vague, from District 4 recused herself from the matter, presumably because she lived in the vicinity of the prospective shop.

With commissioner Stafford Glashan from District 6 and absent, and a vacant seat in District 5, there were not enough officials to form a quorum, though the panel did hear from public speakers, careful to call the opining ‘audience participation’ and not a ‘public hearing’, even though that’s what was proscribed on the agenda.

John Klapperich, a former chair of the MSB Planning Commission and vocal proponent of commercialized marijuana in the Valley, was livid.

“I find it reprehensible that you don’t have these chairs filled,” said Klapperich, who boasted 93 percent commissioner attendance records while he was chair. “There’s people standing in line to fill these positions. It’s irresponsible. Either you don’t care, or it’s political, but I want the mayor and (borough) manager to know that.”

Klapperich continued that long delays on permit hearings hurt businesses other than marijuana dispensaries.

“It says, ‘sorry mister business owner, we don’t care about you,’” Klapperich said. “It sends a horrible message.”

Had it been heard, Bad Gramm3r’s petition wasn’t likely to go quite so smoothly as Green Jar’s.

A resident of the nearby Williwaw subdivision spoke during ‘audience participation’ to say that such a business would hurt property values, and that roads in the area were too damaged to handle the additional traffic the pot shop would attract.

Bad Gramm3r won’t get another chance to be heard until at least the next Planning Commission meeting, which is scheduled for March 20.

Though Monday night’s outcome means Green Jar is bound to get a considerable head start on the competition, Saunders sympathized.

“It kind of blows my mind,” Saunders said. “Basically a sick day (for a commissioner) is a week’s worth of delay for (Bad Gramm3R). One member calls in sick and you can’t make a quorum.”

The only resistance to Green Jar getting its license came from District 7’s Vern Rauchenstein, who was concerned about pictures of a vulnerable door in the rear of the facility. He issued an amendment to require Green Jar to construct a fence within the first 12 months of operation.

“Marijuana is such a new industry that everyone against it is looking, looking, looking,” Rauchenstein said. “If a break-in happens it’s going to be on the front page for weeks… Better safe than sorry is my opinion. Otherwise, there’s no problem I can see.”

The owners agreed to the stipulation and said they were in the process of cooperating with a neighboring business on putting up a shared fence.

The commission also heard a proposal to expand the Talkeetna Community Council to boundaries beyond its current core area.

Commissioners questioned the necessity and purpose of the annexation, and after commissioner Thomas Healy, from District 2, made a motion to take up the proposal, no other commissioner seconded it and Resolution 17-06 died on the floor.