The Roswell City Council on Thursday approved the first two applicants for recreational cannabis sales in the city but failed to pass an ordinance streamlining the process for medical dispensaries that have the proper licensing from the state.
The council approved by votes of 7-2 the zoning cases of Pecos Valley Productions and Ultra Health to operate retail cannabis establishments at 313 W. Country Club Road and 2800 N. Main St., respectively, during its meeting Thursday night. They are the first businesses allowed to sell recreational marijuana within the city limits since it became legal to do so in New Mexico on April 1.
Pecos Valley received in April a conditional use permit from Chaves County to sell both medical and recreational marijuana at a former dairy at 5104 S. Main St., but the company is building out the site for retail operations and has not yet begun sales there.
In both cases Thursday, Councilors Robert Corn, Cristina Arnold, Juan Oropesa, Jeanine Corn-Best, Jason Perry, Juliana Halvorson and Edward Heldenbrand voted to approve, while Councilors Savino Sanchez and Angela Moore voted against. Councilor Barry Foster was absent.
Perry, who has spoken in past meetings about his personal opposition to the legalization of the drug, said his vote was in accordance with the quasi-judicial role councilors were advised by City Attorney Parker Patterson they have when conducting hearings such as zoning cases.
“My vote yes is not because I enjoy the thought of having recreational in our community, but it’s that in a quasi-judicial I am required to vote according to the testimony and to the laws that are currently there. That’s the oath I took,” he said.
“I believe we have a process that will work and I have to stand behind the process which we’ve put in place,” he said.
It was that process that Perry cited later in urging his fellow councilors to not approve the proposed ordinance that would have allowed medical marijuana dispensaries considered to be non-conforming to city zoning laws to sell recreational marijuana without obtaining a zone change and conditional use permit.
City and state cannabis regulations prohibit a cannabis business within 300 feet of schools, parks, churches, residential districts, and facilities for recreation, childcare, military, senior care, retirement and medical use. But because such regulations did not exist when medical marijuana was legalized in New Mexico, several dispensaries in Roswell are located within that distance of such locations. Those businesses can apply for a zoning variance and conditional use permit if they want to sell recreational marijuana.
Perry said the two zoning cases that had been approved earlier in the meeting and the fact that several others were scheduled to be heard by the Planning and Zoning Commission this month showed the city’s regulations work.
He referred to the testimony given by Duke Rodriquez, CEO of Ultra Health, during that company’s zoning case. Rodriquez said every city has its own vetting processes for recreational marijuana, but Roswell went deeper than all the others in New Mexico.
“You’ve had the most extensive and meaningful vetting process we’ve seen so far,” he said. “You’ve taken the time and effort to understand the business, and I think that’s in your best interest,” he said.
“This undoes the process that we’ve just proven as a council works,” Perry said of the proposed amendment. “I just don’t understand that.”
Dennis Kintigh, who served as mayor prior to current mayor Tim Jennings, spoke against the amendment, citing examples of the drug’s affects on people in his 20-year law enforcement career. He said decriminalization of marijuana is a theme of the radical left and the law was passed because of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s bullying.
“The basic question is this: Do you make dope more available or less available? Do you expand the hours, do you make it easier for people to score, or do you try and save just one single life?” he said.
The ordinance failed 5-4 with Perry, Corn-Best, Sanchez, Moore and Oropesa voting against and Corn, Arnold, Halvorson and Heldenbrand voting in favor.
The amendment was put on the council’s April 14 agenda at the request of Mayor Tim Jennings to consider for a public hearing. The council voted then to send the ordinance to the Legal Committee for vetting, and at special meetings of the committee and the council on April 25, it was amended to also include city-wide operating hours for all cannabis businesses with no sales on Sundays and to prohibit on-site consumption permits in the city.
A motion by Oropesa to restore permits for on-site consumption died due to lack of a second. A motion by Heldenbrand to allow Sunday sales from noon to 5 p.m. was approved 5-4.
However, because the ordinance failed to pass, the city code will remain as originally approved with no city-wide hours of operation. Instead, a business’ allowable hours will be determined by a conditional use permit, which Community Development Director Kevin Maevers said would take into account what would be appropriate for the surrounding neighborhood.
On-site consumption permits will also be allowed, but Maevers said as of Thursday, no applications had been made.
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