Yesterday, we reported the city's Office of Neighborhood Involvement was considering levying fines on Portland dispensaries that opened at 12:01 am on Thursday, the very first minute people 21 and up can buy recreational pot. Marijuana Program Specialist Victor Salinas said at the time that dispensaries will be subject to hour limitations of 7 am to 9 pm. Portland City Council appears ready to enact that rule Wednesday.
"They would be in violation of city ordinance," Salinas said
Problem is, the language of the law ensures Portland won't have any say in how dispensaries operate for months. The licensing regulations the city's cooked up say: "Licensee must maintain hours of operation no earlier than 7 a.m. and no later than 9 p.m." But the city doesn't plan to begin accepting applications for licenses until December, meaning none of the 98 Portland dispensaries that plan to sell recreational weed Thursday will be "licensees."
The city acknowledged as much this morning. Theresa Marchetti, ONI's livability programs manager, said instead the city hopes dispensaries will voluntarily comply with the hour rules.
"I would caution the industry against engaging in any kind of behavior that could be viewed by the community as out of spirit with this process," Marchetti says.
Dispensary owners the Mercury spoke with today were universally confused about the city's plans for regulations, but many of them had decided to push back plans for a midnight opening—except one.
Brad Zusman, co-owner of Canna-Daddy's Wellness Center on SE Division, says he's been advertising a midnight opening for weeks now, and doesn't want to disappoint potential customers.
"We’re gonna go through and open up at midnight for the first night," Zusman says. "There’s not really much that the city’s going to be able to do to enforce curfew on the first day."
Zusman says he'll happily comply with the city's proposed hours beginning on Friday.
"The problem is, everybody did all this advertising weeks in advance, then last week all the sudden the city came up with this new law," he says. "What’s done is done."
In fact, the city's proposed guidelines have been around for more than a week. City council's already sent them back for revision twice, after outcry from the dispensary community.
Zusman says he'll attend tomorrow morning's city council meeting, and speak with commissioners about his plan.
