Does a Palm Beach ordinance that bans medical marijuana treatment centers and dispensaries from operating on the island also prohibit recreational marijuana dispensaries or other retailers?
Town Attorney Joanne O’Connor hopes to have an answer to that question by next month.
At the Town Council’s development review meeting on Sept. 11, Council President Bobbie Lindsay asked O’Connor to research the issue and report her findings at the panel’s Oct. 8 regular meeting.
Lindsay expressed concern about potential negative impacts on residents if recreational marijuana dispensaries were permitted in Palm Beach.
Related: The Florida cannabis industry is growing. Here’s why Palm Beachers may want in.
“I was recently in California, and I smelled marijuana everywhere I went,” she told council members. “It doesn’t bother me so much in the stores. It’s all recreationally allowed in Colorado, Oregon, Washington and California. It’s all over the place. You just smell it everywhere and you see it. The thing that is really disheartening to me is, outside the dispensary, there are people — believe it or not — who look like us, that walk in and out of these stores and buy their stuff.