Niles City Council approves first music cannabis festival

NILES, Mich. -- A new cannabis festival is coming to Niles this summer. The city council voting 6-2 Monday night in favor of the one-day invite only event.

“We’ve got over 20 vendors already in our community who have already applied and/or are in the process of being licensed here already. They want an opportunity to present their business," said Community Development Director, Sonya Vitale.

The event will take place in July as a trial run and promoters are hoping it’ll allow the city to become the central hub for cannabis tourism.

“We’re really 3 hours from just millions of people in Niles and with the number of highways that kind of go through here you know we are centrally located," said Vitale.

The event which has been proposed several times in the past has faced criticism from community members over safety concerns. Despite this, promoters say they are taking all the precautions necessary.

Creating a layout similar to that of a beer garden to allow for proper ventilation space - as well as implementing COVID protocols and limiting capacity to only 500 attendees.

“We’ll want them to maintain those COVID guidelines. We don’t want this to be a spreader event. We don’t want that opportunity to happen in our community," said Vitale.

If this first event runs smoothly city officials will discuss creating a larger scaled version that would take place sometime this fall.