Temporary marijuana event licenses were included as a component of the recreational marijuana ordinance approved by the City Commission in late 2019. At that time, it was determined that the guidelines for obtaining this license should be done through a Commission policy rather than through the City Code or Land Development Code. The attached policy was developed by the City Clerk, Community Services Director, and Assistant City Manager.
The State rules and the City’s marijuana ordinance require the City Commission to expressly approve venues for holding a marijuana event and this policy has been separated into two sections, public property and private property, in order to accommodate this requirement. All events will require a review by the City Commission and will follow the format of the special events application.
Due to event size, designated marihuana buffers, location and availability of facilities and services, the following City park sites have been determined to be the only appropriate for temporary marihuana events: Tourist Park, Lakeview Arena and Presque Isle. A resolution has been included with this item to officially designate these locations as acceptable venues.
Due to issues with indoor smoking, Lakeview Arena and the Presque Isle Pavilion will only permit non-smoking/non-vaping events within normal venue rental guidelines.
The policy allows smoking events in Tourist Park, however additional conditions are being recommended to ensure the preservation of the park's primary purpose of recreational camping. The first condition requires the event holder to rent out every campsite within the park for the duration of their event. The City currently requires this for other groups requiring exclusive use of Tourist Park, most notably the Hiawatha Music Festival. Event organizers will have the option of opening the campsites up to their event patrons. The second condition is to only permit these events to occur during the months of May and October. These months are the campgrounds lowest utilized months outside of the winter dog park season and would be the lowest impact to the normal camping activity.
Private property events will need to adhere to buffers and will need to obtain the appropriate permits as determined by the size and type of the event. The application will request the same information that is being required by the State.
A $500 per day fee will be set for a temporary marihuana event license, with an additional $200 for each licensee authorized to sell marihuana products at the event. The $500 per day fee will be due upon submission of the application along with the corresponding special event permit fee. The additional $200 per licensee authorized to sell marihuana products will be due one week prior to the start of the event after all additional licensees have been finalized. This fee does not include any additional rental and public safety costs that are determined during the special event permit review process. These fees will initially be set by the attached Event Fee Resolution and will be included in the fee schedule as a part of the City budgeting process going forward.