ESCANABA — Sparks flew at Thursday’s Escanaba City Council meeting, but when the smoke cleared, the council voted to opt in to having legal retail marijuana sales within the city limits.

“This is a huge opportunity to bring in revenue, new business opportunity, new employment, and the opportunity to take up these empty buildings, which bring in tax dollars and (use) utilities,” said Council member Tyler DuBord.

Marijuana has been a hot topic in the city since even before the passage of Proposition 1 passed in 2018, legalizing the use, sale and production of marijuana across the state. Municipalities are automatically “opted-in” to the law, meaning commercial marijuana operations are legal within their borders, unless they specifically “opt out” by passing an ordinance.

Municipalities that stayed opted-in to the law were eligible for partial reimbursements of the tax revenues generated through marijuana sales. Last week, $172 million was distributed to communities with marijuana retail establishments across the state.

However, Escanaba was on a different path. In 2019, the city opted out, but unlike other ordinances across the state banning marijuana businesses, Escanaba’s ordinance included a sunset clause ‚ a feature included by the ordinance’s author, former Council Member Ralph Blasier, to force the city to readdress the issue once rules from the state became more clear-cut.

Over the past few years, the ordinance has been extended, with the most recent extension setting the ordinance to expire on Sept. 19 of this year. Rather than waiting for the ordinance to expire, the council took up the issue again Thursday.

“The expansion of opting in is increasing more and more within the state. We keep falling backwards. We need to move forward. Otherwise we miss out on these opportunities,” said DuBord, who was the most vocal proponent of opting-in to the law during Thursday’s meeting.

Despite having a retail marijuana establishment in the city limits, neither the city nor the county received any of the state’s funds because Lume Cannabis Co. is located on tribal land within the city’s borders. Tribal establishments are exempt from the law, but had the store been located on non-tribal land, the city and county each would have received $56,453.44.

Council Member Ronald Beauchamp, who held a strongly anti-retail-marijuana position, described the payments as “the state using money to get its way.” He questioned whether the push for legalizing commercial marijuana sales in the city was tied to the city’s $300,000 budget deficit this year or the expected $1 million deficit in the coming fiscal year.

“Are you really suggesting that we should be funding our public services based on drug money?” he asked.

Council Member Karen Moore argued strongly against opting into the law, claiming use and not retail establishments were what people voted on in 2018, that the 2% margin of the proposition’s passing in Escanaba was not a show of “resounding support,” and that the issue was about access and whether or not stores should be placed near homes or schools.

Instead, Moore argued the issue of retail sales be put on the November ballot to let the voters decide on retail establishments as a separate issue from marijuana use.

“The five of us should not be deciding this,” she said.

Mayor Mark Ammel asked Moore if she would head up a ballot proposal and work on the proposal’s wording, allowing the residents to vote but also to allow the council to have some say in the future of sales. Moore said she did not know the process for putting the issue on the ballot, but would be willing to if it were legal for her to do so.

DuBord disagreed with putting the issue to a vote.

“We are elected officials and I feel we can make that decision in consideration of hearing from our constituents, feedback, emails, public comment, our own research‚ based on that, and I feel that we can move forward. And I do not feel like spending taxpayer dollars on that,” he said.

Instead, DuBord put forward a motion to terminate the sunset clause as it is written and to opt-in to the law allowing dispensaries within the city limits, contingent on the adoption of an ordinance opting the city into the law and also contingent on all of the necessary administrative procedures taking place. The motion passed in a split 3-2 vote, with Moore and Beauchamp voting against the measure.

The city will now have to pass two separate ordinances. One will opt the city into the law and the other will set forth rules for retail establishments, such as where the establishments can be located.

In other business the council

– Rejected a request from Water and Wastewater Superintendent Jeff Lampi for $250,000 for asphalt paving at the city’s wastewater plant. Both Beauchamp and DuBord expressed paving city streets was a more important use of city funds than paving a parking lot and it was suggested the lot remain gravel, at least temporarily. Moore moved to grant Lampi’s request, however the motion died for lack of second.

– Held the first reading on an ordinance amending the city’s zoning ordinance.

– Set a public hearing date for the potential condemnation of 1607 North 20th Street. The building at that address was struck by lightning and caught fire last year.

– Approved the annual water and wastewater chemical bids./