MORGANTOWN — Unless a proposed cannabis dispensary wants to open up within 1,000 feet of a school or daycare center, the Monongalia County Board of Health pretty much has to approve it.
It did just that last week, signing off on a new dispensary location for 11 Hartman Run road, which is the intersection of Hartman Run and Earl Core roads, in Sabraton.
“It meets the only requirement the state has actually provided us,” County Health Officer Dr. Brian Huggins explained.
Monongalia County Health Department Executive Director Anthony DeFelice said this facility would be the eighth dispensary operating in the county.
The vote went 4-1, with BOH President Sam Chico voting in the minority, though he conceded it was largely a symbolic gesture.
“My recollection is, from the last backside whooping I took on cannabis, we don’t really have a way to reject this,” he said.
The formality of having to sign off on dispensary locations is a recurring irritant for a board of health that took a strong, if unpopular, stance in 2021, demanding rigorous oversight over such dispensaries.
Backed by testimony from pain management and addiction specialists at WVU, the board made its case and drafted its own set of local regulations, which included requirements like on-site medical practitioners as well as regulations pertaining to security, product storage and additional restrictions on dispensary locations, among other things.
This drew immediate pushback from the business community, and ultimately, the state, which requires board of health approval but limits such bodies to measuring the distance between parcels.
Morgantown Development Services Director Rickie Yeager said Woodward Development is behind the 2,000 square-foot dispensary proposed for the 2.3 acre parcel.
The parcel, which is currently split-zoned R-1A (single-family residential) and B-2 (service business) will be before Morgantown City Council tonight for first reading of a zoning change making the entire parcel B-2.
The site sits about 600 feet as the crow flies from an existing dispensary, at 1397 Earl Core Road.
The West Virginia Office of Medical Cannabis has said up to 14 dispensaries can operate in Monongalia County.
According to the WVOMC website, there are currently 62 dispensaries in the state, including 10 in Kanawha County, eight in Cabell County, seven in Monongalia County and five in Harrison and Wood counties.
Thirty-six of the state’s 55 counties have no dispensaries according to the WVOMC.
