ESCANABA — How to regulate marijuana businesses in Escanaba was a hot topic at the city council meeting Thursday, but the council stopped short of deciding whether or not to allow retail and grow operations within the city limits.

“Smoking marijuana impedes the smoker’s ability to move forward with activities of life. However, it’s my understanding, if we counted right, that the citizens of Escanaba voted for Prop 1. I am not willing to oppose the will of the voters. They voted for it, it’s wrong and I hate it, but they voted for it, so I will not oppose it,” said Council Member Ralph ­Blasier.

Proposition 1 — which passed in Escanaba with 2,554 to 2,332 votes — legalized the recreational use of marijuana by individuals 21 years of age or older statewide. It also set up the regulatory framework for controlling the commercial production and distribution of marijuana.

Now known as the “Michigan Regulation and Taxation of Marihuana Act” (“marihuana” being the legal spelling of the plant in Michigan law), Proposition 1 officially took effect earlier this month, but there are still many legal questions facing cities. Specifically, municipalities are left guessing what rights they have to regulate commercial businesses when there is little guidance from the state.

“This is not something that Joe Smith down the street is going to do. This is going to be big business coming in, creating something in our community, and we don’t even know what the state is going to regulate it with,” said Council Member Peggy Schumann.

Cities must specifically “opt-out” of the law to keep marijuana businesses from opening in their communities. It’s possible to opt back in at any time, and many communities are waiting to see how the state regulates these businesses to avoid any legal fees related to lawsuits if local and state regulations don’t match.

“We don’t want to mislead — don’t want to give false hope to a business plan now, when they may have a vested interest in a property. We don’t want to surprise them,” said Mayor Marc Tall.

The state has until Dec. 6 of next year, one year from the day the law officially took effect, to roll out its own rules.

However, it’s not all bad for cities that do decide to stay opted-in to the law. Tax money raised by the sale and growing of marijuana is collected by the state and then redistributed to communities based on the number of retail marijuana businesses they have.

City Manager Patrick Jordan said he spoke with State Representative Beau LaFave about whether it would be possible to only allow commercial grow operations — adding a major utility user and adding to the city’s tax base — but discovered doing so would mean completely foregoing a share of the tax revenue.

“It doesn’t matter if you have commercial grow. You have to have retail to have a share of that pie. I think it’s going to be years for that bucket to amount to anything, and I fear that the social costs that we’re going to experience are going to far outweigh anything we’re going to get out of this,” he said. “I’ve seen it firsthand in my life, and I just don’t want to see it here.”

The council initially voted on whether to “not opt out” of the law, however the vote failed. Blasier and Mayor Pro-tem Ron Beauchamp had voted to stay opted-in, Council Members Schumann and Michael Sattem abstained, and Mayor Marc Tall voted nay.

While no vote was taken on the matter, the council came to a consensus that there was not enough information available to make a decision about opting out of the law at this time.