Niles City Council holds second public forum to discuss medical pot shops
A budding topic in Niles continues to grow.
Tuesday night, the Niles City Council hosted a second public forum to discuss the possibility of medical pot shops.
The purpose of these forums is to gage the community’s reactions.
Niles Mayor, Nick Shelton, says even though it is still very early in the process, meetings like this are crucial.
One of the benefits of allowing medicinal marijuana shops could be the economic boost to the economy as a whole.
“There could be. There are a lot of unknowns at the state level right now. So how much of a financial impact that would have on the City of Niles, we don’t really know,” said Mayor Shelton.
With the recent passing of a new Michigan medical marijuana law, Tuesday night, a second meeting was held in as many weeks to discuss the potential of pots shops in the city.
“It’s going to happen in Michigan, so we need to decide if Niles is one of the places where it’s happening. Our job as council is to do what is in the best interest of our citizens. So the more we can hear from them in a forum like this, the better,” said the Mayor.
The results from the meeting on February 23rd were eye-opening.
111 of the 200 in attendance received questionnaires.
When it came to growers, dispensaries and processors, it was clearly a pro-cannabis – crowd.
“Nothing will happen on the state level until December of 2017, so we are looking at the end of the year. But that’s not to say we can’t get the ball rolling to be ready for that, if that happens,” said Mayor Shelton.
Over 150 people were in attendance at the city’s second meeting on Tuesday.