Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

Ketchikan has the Marijuana Advisory Committee. Petersburg has a 19-person Local Marijuana Regulation Advisory Committee. Juneau has the CBJ Marijuana Committee. A tour in Skagway offers marijuana samples.

In Haines, residents are wondering why the municipality hasn’t started talking about pot.

Dean Lari, a longtime champion of marijuana legalization, told the assembly last week he would like to see some kind of discussion or meeting take place. “We need to start talking about this,” he said. “We can all benefit from it.”

Alaska voters approved the legalization of marijuana last November. Though the state is still developing its regulations, the passed legislation allows for some degree of local control.

The marijuana issue arose at the Chamber of Commerce’s assembly candidate forum on Friday. Candidate Margaret Friedenauer said she wished the borough had already started a local task force to tackle the issue.

“I think we should have started the discussion right away,” Friedenauer said. “It would be a lot easier if we were talking about this already and understanding what the community wanted already (rather) than waiting for the regulations to come down from the state and hurrying to conform to them.”

Friedenauer said she sees “lots of opportunity” in regulating the sale of marijuana, but acknowledged it isn’t without its issues. “There are some social problems involved with it just like with alcohol, and you have to be aware of that and offer education and support for those kinds of things, too.”

Candidate Jerry Lapp agreed the town needs a marijuana task force, which could look into the opportunities and obstacles legalization and commercialization have already presented in Washington and Colorado.

“The voters voted for it. So this is the hand that we’re dealt that we’ll deal with,” Lapp said.

Candidate Tresham Gregg cited the recent Chamber of Commerce questionnaire on marijuana regulation, and said tax revenue gleaned from sales could be put toward community development projects. Gregg also admitted he doesn’t have a concrete vision on how the regulations would work.

The chamber’s unscientific online questionnaire found that of 43 respondents, only one person said they would not support taxing marijuana sales to support municipal programs (two people skipped the question).

It also found that 29 respondents supported allowing growing, production and retail sale with regulation. Nine respondents said local code should encourage agriculture, production and retail sale of marijuana borough-wide, and five said local code should prohibit growing marijuana and retailing marijuana and marijuana-based products.

Local leaders, including Mayor Jan Hill, have stated their preference for waiting for the state to develop regulations, though it has struggled to do so.

In February, Hill told the assembly about her trip to the Alaska Municipal League conference in Juneau, where she attended a half-day session on marijuana. “One of the messages that we received during the presentation during the conference was: don’t get in a big hurry to try to get things done first,” Hill said. “As far as communities coming up with ordinances and resolutions and regulations, it’s a little premature.”

Hill did not return calls for comment as she was at Southeast Conference in Prince Rupert, B.C., this week.

Manager David Sosa this week said he has placed a prompt on Tuesday’s assembly meeting agenda to set a committee-of-the whole meeting “some time in the near future” to discuss the issue.

Following scheduling conflicts that prompted the cancellation of its marijuana forum, the Chamber of Commerce has rescheduled for 6:30 p.m. Oct. 6 in the Chilkat Center auditorium. Attorney Kevin Higgins and Alcoholic Beverage Control Board director Cynthia Franklin will speak about the Alaska Marijuana Control Board’s proposed regulations.

Assembly member Ron Jackson said at one point he brought up whether the assembly should start talking about the issue, but the consensus seemed to be against that thought. “I mentioned that once and it seems like there was a general wanting to wait to see what the state is going to do,” Jackson said.

That’s not necessarily a problem, as the assembly’s plate is pretty full right now, with several controversial issues including the Small Boat Harbor expansion project and the minor offenses ordinance eating up a lot of the assembly’s time and attention, Jackson said.

“I think there is time to deal with it when we get the rules of engagement,” Jackson added, referring to the state regulations.

Though Haines hasn’t started the conversation, its neighbor to the north was forced to when a company called “Coyote and Toad’s Garden” applied for a conditional use permit to offer garden tours including free marijuana sampling.

Skagway clerk Emily Deach said even though the municipality hasn’t discussed regulations in earnest (its Civic Affairs Committee plans to this month, she said), the Planning and Zoning Commission approved the Coyote and Toad’s Garden tour permit.

Skagway permitting official David Van Horn said the property was permitted for a medicinal herb garden tour. The tour only offers samples on the property, and does not sell the marijuana or allow it to be taken away from the property, Van Horn said.

Though it doesn’t sell the marijuana, the company does charge $125 per person for the two-and-a-half hour “Elite Cannabis Tour,” which includes one hour of driving around Skagway in a limo van after sampling the marijuana at the garden, according to the company’s website.