The medical marijuana community has seen a rash of anti mmj activity lately. Someone or some group has been sending out a message of fear urging local units of government to take action ASAP.

One year ago there was no urge to rush to sudden action.

Last night Shiawassee County debated one of these “moratoriums.” They closed the public meeting to debate the measure behind closed doors. They then returned to the public only to take a vote.

What is suddenly so wrong that such measures are being taken?

Some of these local units of government are going to be sued.

There is a high probability that the tact applied will be via the Right to Farm act.

The RTF in Michigan is the strongest one of its kind in the entire nation.

It forbids restrictions on farming within cities on residential property. .. Bluntly.

More than fifty cases have come before the Michigan Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court in which the abilities of local governments in Michigan to pass laws that are more restrictive than existing state law. Every one of them held in favor of the State of Michigan over the local governments.

Now then within the RTF act ..

The RTF allows for pain and suffering caused by the local laws. In addition to clearly spelled out other damages allowed, the RTF also specifically allows the collections of lawyer fees and other costs related to the suit.

Some of these “moratoriums” will turn into fully funded IRAs for attorneys. It would be very odd, indeed, if Ann Arbor became one of them.

I don’t think it will happen to Ann Arbor. Unless the type of case becomes known as a very easy case for an attorney.

There’s two ways that relates to the medical marijuana issue. One is the dispensaries themselves, which status Taylor claims is dubious. And that’s what I take mr. dairy’s point to be — that dispensaries are not expressly proscribed, and operate using the definitions of the voter-enacted law. and are thus legal.

The other way that principle relates to the medical marijuana issue is through the putative argument that Taylor and Postema have in mind that concludes dispensaries are illegal — based on zoning considerations. The city’s zoning code explicitly states that any “use” not expressly allowed is prohibited — which is a way of explicitly rejecting mr. dairy’s “whatever the law does not prohibit” principle. Postema notes that the use as a dispensary is not expressly permitted by the zoning code and would like to argue they are not legal on that basis. That argument, however, depends on the idea that a “dispensary use” is a land use that should be subject to zoning. Postema has provided no argument for that idea.

Even if we accept that “dispensary use” is a land use that should be regulated through zoning, the city is not in a position to argue that the dispensaries are illegal. That’s because the city has no current provision in any of its zoning to provide for this “dispensary use” anywhere in the city. And that would violate the state’s enabling legislation for zoning, which does not allow exclusionary zoning, whereby a land use is effectively prohibited by dint of the fact that there is no zoning for it. And this is why Postema would like to have the zoning code revised to include dispensaries as a “land use” — one that in Postema’s view is essentially comparable to adult bookstores and X-rated movie theaters, which are also subject to spacing requirements as he’s suggested for dispensaries.

You, nor anyone else, are not allowed to interpret the state law to further prohibit what the law does not currently state as prohibited behavior.

I see the Council Party is up to their old tricks in the aftermath of the primary election. Couldn’t even wait until November.

Illegal Council secret meetings and blackballing DDA membership for non-rubber stamps for the Mayor’s agenda? This is coming as a surprise to anyone? Duh…

Mr Postema is paid with our tax dollars, serves at the whim, or is responsible to Council and Mayor, yet it seems that some of his decisions and advice (OMA comes to mind) to Council seem indifferent at best and hostile at worst to the will of the people, who elected Council and pay his and Council’s salary.