Meeker County wants to hear what residents think about a proposed ordinance that would regulate the use of cannabis products in the county.
During its meeting Nov. 7, the County Board set a public hearing for its regular meeting Nov. 21, at which time it will take comments on an ordinance that’s been in the works for the past few months.
Work on an ordinance comes in response to the Minnesota Legislature’s passage earlier this year of a law legalizing the use of cannabis by people 21 years and older. The law, which took effect Aug. 1, left the door open to local units of government to regulate public use of the substance.
With the new law on the horizon, county commissioners during a July meeting directed Meeker Area Partners in Prevention — a coalition that includes elected officials, school officials and others from throughout the county — to draft and propose a cannabis public-use ordinance.
“We asked the direction that they would like to see, community members and individuals involved in that coalition, to see how they would like this drafted,” County Attorney Brandi Schiefelbein said during the Nov. 7 meeting. She noted that commissioners Steve Schmidt and Paul Johnson, along with County Administrator Andrew Letson, Litchfield Mayor Ron Dingmann and school representatives, who were “really looking for some support here,” participated in the discussions.
The draft ordinance is shaped similarly to the county’s tobacco ordinance, Schiefelbein said, in that it restricts where cannabis products can be used, although language in the draft bans any public use of cannabis, except at an establishment or event licensed for on-site consumption. The state is not expected to issue such licenses until late 2024.
“It’s under the same statutory authority of the public health exception, where we’re really trying to avoid any sort of … exposure to the general public, exposure to children, the normalizing of this behavior of smoking cannabis,” Schiefelbein said. “It’s really looking at kind of protecting the health and safety of the younger population, as well as the general population.”
State law authorizes county government to adopt ordinances for all or part of a county to regulate “actual or potential threats to the public health,” according to a memo from Schiefelbein’s office that was including in the board’s agenda packet. Among those threats, the memo listed “unintended access, exposure of cannabis to the general public and youth, normalizing behavior of using cannabis in public and the unintentional consumption of edibles or seltzers containing cannabis by children.”
While the Legislature did not establish a penalty for unlawful use of cannabis in public, the law passed this year gives local governments authority to make it a petty misdemeanor, the county attorney’s memo said.
The county played host to an informational meeting earlier this year for municipalities in its jurisdiction, and officials from Litchfield, Eden Valley, Dassel and Watkins participated. Litchfield’s city attorney reviewed the draft ordinance and requested language that would allow cities take additional action if warranted.
“The feedback from the cities included an appreciation that the county and cities within Meeker County would be regulated consistently under the Public Health authority,” the memo read.
