Village of Dundee opts out of recreational marijuana indefinitely

DUNDEE -- Leaders in the Village of Dundee say they are willing to listen to proposals for recreational marijuana establishments in their boundaries, even as they unanimously voted to drop the sunset clause of the village's Prohibition of Marijuana Establishments Ordinance.

On December 7, village council approved the re-adoption of the ordinance with an amendment that removed the sunset clause, which required them to re-adopt the ordinance every year. Dundee had been using the sunset clause as a way to keep the opt-out temporary, but Village Council President Andrea Hickey said the decision to remove the clause was made after the village almost missed its deadline to re-adopt the ordinance last year.

"The ordinance still says that (recreational marijuana establishments) would be prohibited, but the sunset clause would be removed," Hickey said. "The ordinance would no longer sunset; it would just be in there as prohibited. What happened last year is we almost forgot it, we had to throw it on the agenda."

Additionally, Hickey said she has recently had some discussions with fire departments in municipalities that do allow recreational marijuana establishments. Those discussions yielded a new reason why she believes council doesn't need to allow these facilities in the village at this time.

"It is an increase in volume of calls and whatnot, and what they need to do to inspect the facilities, because you do need fire inspections and that kind of stuff," Hickey said. "Right now our fire department is at critical volunteer levels. I think that, because it's easy to change the ordinance if a business comes to us that has a plan, we can evaluate at that time. But for now, we'll just remove the sunset clause so we don't accidentally miss it.

"It's not that we won't be open to it in the future, but removing the sunset clause just means that we won't forget to continue it."

This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Village of Dundee opts out of recreational marijuana indefinitely