The Worthington City Council approved its first reading of the city's proposed cannabis ordinance at Monday's meeting. Regulations and clarifications in the ordinance include business registration processes, enforcement penalties, operating hours, the prohibition of its public usage and more. Registration fees will cost new businesses $1,000 while renewals will cost them $500.
One of the other regulations to be enforced is the city's mandate to have at least two interactions with cannabis businesses per year, with one being a preliminary compliance check prior to the issuance of registration.
"A preliminary compliance check would come before the business is actually open, where you're going to be checking things like making sure their product labels meet state requirements, whatever other requirements you have that they've got security systems up and operating and things like that," City Planner Matt Selof explained to the council. "From there, you move into the age compliance checks that the police department will have to conduct."
Selof added that the city will have "wait and see" if the other of the two yearly visits, which are an unannounced age compliance check or a regular age compliance check — similar to those made with liquor businesses — would be one in the same or considered separate checks in and of themselves.
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