Judge strikes down Highland Park’s recreational marijuana ordinance

Don’t expect to buy legal recreational weed in Highland Park anytime soon.

Just before the city was expected to begin issuing licenses for dispensaries to open, Wayne County Circuit Judge Susan Hubbard struck down the Detroit suburb's controversial marijuana ordinance.

Hubbard ruled that Highland Park's ordinance violated the Michigan Zoning and Enabling Act because city officials failed to get approval from the city's Planning Commission to create eight zones where cannabis businesses were permitted to open.

“The city failed to comply, as it admitted, with the strict requirements and procedures set up in the Zoning and Enabling Act,” Hubbard said. “Therefore the court is invalidating the ordinance.”

Highland Park activist Robert Davis filed the lawsuit in May, alleging the past city council created the zones to benefit donors who had property in those areas.

“The former members of the city council, certain businesses, and some shrewd elected officials attempted to push through an illegal ordinance to help themselves get rich through this unlawful process,” Davis tells Metro Times. “Now that Judge Hubbard has properly invalidated the entire ordinance, the city leaders can go back to the table and do it the right away and do it in a way that isn’t benefitting certain individuals and groups.”

Highland Park received 15 applications from potential businesses that wanted to open a dispensary or grow operation in the city. Those applications are no longer valid, according to Judge Hubbard's ruling.

Highland Park Councilwoman Kallela Martin, who was elected in November, had pushed for amendments to the ordinance to address the zoning problems, but Mayor Glenda McDonald vetoed every attempt to change the law.

The future of a recreational marijuana program in Highland Park now hangs in the balance. A majority of the new city council members have expressed support for an amended ordinance, but it wasn’t immediately clear whether McDonald plans to continue vetoing those efforts.

Metro Times couldn’t reach McDonald for comment.

Davis contends McDonald is abusing her veto authority and says he will take legal action if she continues to block future efforts to create a new ordinance.

“This mayor has no clue what she’s doing,” Davis says. “She shouldn’t even be mayor. It’s unfortunate that when you put incompetent, unqualified individuals in elected positions, this is what happens.”

Supporters of recreational marijuana point out that the legal weed market has the potential of injecting several million dollars in new taxes every year to Highland Park, which is on the verge of bankruptcy and can’t pay its water bills. If the city fails to create a new ordinance, they say, residents will miss out on critical services.

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