Gaylord Update: New Ordinance Headed to City Council - by Hemptress Jolene

Gaylord, Michigan:  Since the raids in Gaylord in March, Alan Witt and his friends have been busy.  First figuring out how to fight their charges and then figuring out how to protect their business.  “The raids were eye opening for everyone here is Gaylord.” said a survivor who wished not to be named. The group decided to collaborate with Ben Horner.  Together, the group wrote an ordinance to define provisioning centers within the city limits of Gaylord.  The ordinance defines a provisioning centers as places where 25% of the premise is being used for medical marihuana cultivation. The centers are allowed to have up to three caregivers cultivating together, and are allowed to dispense cannabis to qualified patients.  This ordinance would give them some guidelines under which to operate, a definition and approval of the public.  To make this ordinance a reality, volunteers began collecting signatures.

     With the new ordinance in hand, Witt and his group went door to door collecting signatures.  They needed 10% of the population of the city for the petition to be successful, which meant they needed 287.  The group went out asking around town, and then started knocking on doors to meet their goal. All in all the group collected 600 signatures, and of those, 317 were valid.  Success.  The ordinance is now headed before the City Council.  “It was way easier than we thought it would be, it really only took us three days of hard work.  It feel pretty good we were able to make some movement.” Witt said.

     Alan has many meeting coming up with lawyers and the City Council, but it seems that the hard part is done. His partner, Chad Marrow, is also excited by the change they were able to make in their community.  They are looking forward to having clear guidelines under which to run their business and assisting patients gain access to valuable medicine. They plan on fighting their charges from the March raids.