Marijuana turf wars have moved from street corners to city hall. The “kingpins” are now mostly law-abiding investors. They prefer lawsuits to bullets, but the multi-million-dollar battles remain fierce.
An example is playing out Menominee, a city of about 8,300 located along the northwestern shores of Lake Michigan in the Upper Peninsula, where claims of questionable ethics, backroom dealings, and conflicts of interest abound.
At least eight business are competing for a place in the Menominee marijuana market that, on the surface, doesn’t seem lucrative, but is worth “tens of millions,” according to a federal lawsuit filed Monday, Aug. 21. That’s not because residents consume inordinate amounts of cannabis.
“This is so because Menominee is located on the Wisconsin border and Wisconsin does not permit the retail sale of adult-use recreational marihuana and is unlikely to permit retail sales for several years,” the lawsuit said. Over-the-border business is booming.
The turf war begins
Michigan regulators don’t limit the number of cannabis businesses allowed to operate in a community. Instead, licensing allotments are determined by local government or voter initiatives. Many Michigan cities, townships and villages have passed ordinances banning marijuana business altogether.
Menominee was among them, until the city council passed its own marijuana licensing ordinance in October 2020, establishing a scoring system for applicants and a plan to allow two recreational marijuana shops.
To read more, click on MLive