Hagar Township is moving toward the approval of an ordinance to govern marijuana retailers.
Township Supervisor Izzy DiMaggio tells us the board of trustees this week tabled the matter while it gets a few questions answered, but it’ll come back up. The planning commission has advanced the proposal so that there are locally drafted rules in place to control where marijuana businesses could operate.
“We would restrict any marijuana operations to either a commercial zone or an industrial zone, and some we would totally restrict, not allow them in a township at all, such as a growing operation,” DiMaggio said.
DiMaggio says marijuana businesses would be limited to areas zoned commercial and light industrial, which is about the only kind of industrial Hagar Township has.
Marijuana businesses aren’t currently allowed in Hagar Township, but DiMaggio says planners thought it best to draft their own rules, although he actually doubts the necessity. He says the boom days for marijuana shops may be over.
“You go into Benton Harbor on Main Street, the old Four Corners — anybody that’s my age would remember the Four Corners and so forth, and the Five Corners — there’s like four or five marijuana shops right there. Watervliet has one, so I don’t know that the demand is there anymore.”
DiMaggio says the “easy money” has now probably already been made. Either way, if a marijuana shop wanted to open in Hagar Township, it would be restricted to areas near I-196, Lake Michigan Beach, and Riverside.
The ordinance will be brought back to trustees once they’ve had their questions answered and some details are refined.
