Streetsboro officials were all ears May 20, but not one person showed up to speak at a public hearing regarding the city’s plan to regulate marijuana dispensaries and businesses selling unregulated psychoactive substances.
The proposed ordinance, which city council expects to approve next month, would classify a business that is both a licensed medical marijuana dispensary and an adult use dispensary as a single marijuana dispensary. The ordinance would limit dispensaries of any kind to two.
The state has not yet finalized rules that will govern adult-use dispensaries, but a publicized draft stipulates that no two such businesses can be within a mile of each other. Streetsboro’s proposed ordinance specifies a 2,000-foot distance.
The proposed state rules also limit what sorts of paraphernalia, cannabinoid compounds and derivatives dispensaries can sell. An intake representative at Bliss Ohio, Kent’s medical marijuana dispensary, said the state allows medical marijuana dispensaries to sell accessories such as vape cartridge batteries and grinders, but forbids the sale of THC products like Delta-8 or Delta-9.
Streetsboro currently has five retail businesses that sell paraphernalia, cannabinoid compounds and derivatives as a primary business. Streetsboro’s proposed ordinance would cut that number to three.
Competition is good, but an oversaturation of the market could result in businesses being unsuccessful, Mayor Glenn Broska said, adding that the city isn’t aiming to close the five existing shops, but if one or two of them close, they would not be replaced.
Though unregulated products like Delta-8 or Delta-9 can be obtained in many grocery stores and gas stations, there is no way to know if the state’s final rules would allow adult-use dispensaries to sell them.
Streetsboro does not currently have a marijuana dispensary of any kind. The county’s only other medical marijuana dispensary, in addition to Bliss Ohio, is Supergood, located at 554 N. Chestnut St. in Ravenna.
But the city is already eyeing its first dispensary. Believing that the state’s final rules will substantially mirror the draft document, Streetsboro’s planning commission in March greenlit entrepreneur Tom Hobson’s plans to site a combined medical and adult use dispensary in a former leather shop at 9156 State Route 14, near the town square.
Had Streetsboro’s proposed ordinance adhered to the state’s one-mile limit, a second dispensary could only be located near the city limits, Broska said.
Wary of what any of the state’s final rules might be, different towns are taking different approaches. Bliss co-owners Pamela and Dwayne Siekman asked Kent City Council in April to lift a city-wide moratorium on adult-use dispensaries, but received a hard no.
With nearby cities taking a more proactive approach, the Siekmans held out the real possibility that Bliss could have little choice but move out of Kent just to stay in business.
Aurora also has a 12-month moratorium on marijuana dispensaries. Its legislation citing the lack of the city’s planning and zoning framework and the state’s lack of final regulations was first enacted in November of 2023.
Wendy DiAlesandro is a former Record Publishing Co. reporter and contributing writer for The Portager.