Last week, Whitefish City Council discussed and eventually voted to approve a conditional use permit for a marijuana dispensary to operate at 333 Baker Avenue.

The green building was previously used as a physical therapy office and is directly across the street from the Whitefish Credit Union on Baker Avenue.

Typically dispensaries in Whitefish require an administrative conditional use permit, which is one that is approved by staff without a public hearing, but this particular request raised some controversy. Due to a comment by the Whitefish Credit Union, who contend that the proposal will adversely or injuriously affect their personal or legal interest, this request required a full conditional use permit (CUP).

When addressed by the Whitefish Planning Board on July 21, the matter resulted in a 3-to-1 vote in favor of recommending approval of the CUP to the Whitefish City Council.

“This proposed dispensary… does meet all the city standards for dispensaries including the distancing requirement under state law and that’s something our code defers to how the state regulates that,” Whitefish City Planner Dave Taylor said.

The state of Montana has a three-part test regarding buffering criteria to which the city of Whitefish defers for marijuana facilities. According to the staff report, the three parts include: whether the entrance of a church or school is on the same street, whether the physical address is on the same street as a church or school and whether the distance from the entrance of the building in question, measured in a straight line, is 500 feet or less.

“While a couple of the churches are within 500 feet, it doesn’t meet the three-part test of the state law, so the state is OK to license it there. Therefore, within our code, we are OK with that location,” Taylor added.

The dispensary’s door is on a different street than one church and has a different address than another, so the three-part test was not met in its entirety.

Ian Stewart of OBR Management, LLC, spoke on behalf of the applicant, Vincent Remmel, and said his company has been working with a regulatory and corporate counsel in Whitefish who has helped them structure legal documents to assure they are compliant with the state's regulations.

Stewart touched on three points that were brought up in letters from the public: proximity to churches and schools, safety and parking. He said the three-part test was not met because the doors are on different streets, that university studies show dispensaries cause no changes in violent disorder and drug crime, and that the building, while not required to provide parking, does have parking spaces for three to four vehicles.

Josh Wilson represented the Whitefish Credit Union that contends the proposal will adversely or injuriously affect their personal or legal interest.

“The representative of OBR management cited specifically there is no rise in violent crime, which is accurate within the statement but (the study) also clearly states… that there was a statistically significant increase in the rates of neighborhood crime,” said Wilson.

Wilson added that neighborhood crime is categorized as burglary and theft, which he said are major issues that are consistent with dispensaries.

Whitefish resident Rhonda Fitzgerald presented the councilors with a map from a city council meeting in 2021 when the council approved the text amendment for dispensaries.

She said marijuana facilities were restricted from some parts of the B3, or general business zone during that meeting and the map shows those changes.

After Councilor Rebecca Norton asked Taylor to comment about the map, he said, “That map was put together when we first did the ordinance. We showed blue lines where it talks about a state mandate, a 500-foot buffer from school or church entrances.”

“So we just generally showed where a church entrance was and then drew a line down that street within 500 feet,” Taylor continued. “This isn’t part of the code. It’s just something we showed as an example when the ordinance came forward.”

Taylor reiterated that the Whitefish ordinance is “pursuant to state law,” in other words, it defers to state law on the distancing requirements.

Norton made a friendly amendment to move the dispensary’s signage to Fourth Street from Baker Avenue and after that motion passed, the council voted to approve the CUP with a vote of 3 to 1.

Norton voted in opposition because she was concerned about the “major outcry from the public” and felt it best to “be cautious and not proceed with this one.”

She also commented that the city has eight administrative CUP permits for dispensaries already approved within city limits. She said applicants who were already licensed as medical marijuana dispensaries could obtain an administrative CUP and have until June, 2023 to establish their business.

Taylor replied that only two of those facilities are open in city limits right now and it is unknown if others will open within their 18-month period.