DELAWARE - A bill aimed at curbing county-level restrictions on marijuana businesses in Delaware moves on to the House.
Senate Bill 75, sponsored by Sen. Trey Paradee and Rep. Edward Osienski, seeks to amend Delaware Code to prevent counties from placing excessive zoning or operational restrictions on marijuana establishments.
The legislation would mandate that counties must:
Allow medical marijuana compassion centers with conversion licenses to operate as retail marijuana stores under existing nonconforming use laws
Issue building permits to licensed conversion operators if proposed improvements meet zoning requirements
Permit retail marijuana stores to operate from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 8 p.m. on Sundays, at minimum
Allow indoor, enclosed cultivation facilities in areas zoned agricultural or industrial
Restrict retail store bans in commercial or industrial zones to only within a half-mile of another retail store or within 500 feet of sensitive locations like schools, parks or churches
The bill also states that its provisions will override any existing or future county ordinances that conflict with these standards. For towns and cities in Sussex County, they have all passed ordinances to ban the sale of marijuana within its limits or have not passed an ordinance yet except for the Town of Georgetown.