MORGANTOWN — More weed shops than Sheetz.
More marijuana merchants than McDonald’s.
Monongalia County Board of Health Chairman Sam Chico offered some perspective Thursday as the board unanimously approved a set of local regulations governing medical cannabis dispensaries.
Of the 100 dispensary permits granted by the West Virginia Office of Medical Cannabis, 14 are in Monongalia County. That’s tied for tops in the state with Kanawha County.
With a population of 106,000, Monongalia County would have one dispensary for every 7,571 people if all 14 set up shop.
“We have six McDonald’s in our entire county, and I have yet in my life hear anyone complain that they don’t have access to a McDonald’s. Yet we’re going to have the potential to have 14 medical marijuana dispensaries,” Chico said, noting 11 of those dispensary permits are in Morgantown.
For a broader perspective, West Virginia has a population of 1.7 million people. If all 100 of the state-approved dispensaries open, that’s one dispensary for every 17,000 residents.
By way of comparison, Pennsylvania — with a population around 13 million — started with 50 dispensaries in 2016 and has since expanded to 88, or about one dispensary for every 148,000 residents.
Chico said he fears the glut of cannabis shops could attract crime or result in shops breaking the rules in order to compete in a saturated market.
These were among the concerns that prompted the BOH to take up the creation of local regulations in 2020. The regulations passed Thursday were posted for public comment in October.
The issue kicked up a bit of dust locally as the Monongalia County Board of Health was the last of the 35 counties to receive dispensary permit applications to take the necessary steps to pass them along to Charleston.
That hesitancy brought pressure from municipalities, state and local elected officials and the business community to get the permits turned over to the state.
That pressure, along with pushback on the idea of local restrictions beyond what’s required by the state, prompted the BOH to move 20 of 21 permit requests to Charleston last fall with the warning that local restrictions were coming.
They arrived Thursday.
Among other things, the document approved by the board restricts the location of dispensaries based on proximity to schools, libraries, child care facilities, public parks and other dispensaries. It also sets standards for security and surveillance measures as well as how cash and product must be stored when the facility is closed.
And it’s likely to change relatively soon.
Directly after approving the new law, the board also approved posting a set of amendments for public comment.
That document will be available today at the Monongalia County Courthouse.
The Monongalia County Health Department declined to provide a copy of the amendments in time for this report.
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