Las Cruces City Council rejects change to cannabis ordinance, will keep buffer from residential zones

LAS CRUCES – The city council debated a loosening of the city's ordinance restricting where cannabis dispensaries may locate their operations, but ultimately left current codes in place. Meanwhile, Mayor Ken Miyagishima made a surprise announcement about an ordinance he plans to propose regarding establishments selling alcohol.

Under cannabis zoning rules enacted by the city in 2021, cannabis businesses must be a minimum of 300 feet from schools and daycare centers. Cannabis retail operations must also be at least 300 feet away from residential zones as well as from other cannabis retailers.

Senior city planner Katherine Harrison-Rogers brought a proposed change to the ordinance before the city council on Monday that would eliminate the 300-foot buffer from residential zones, while leaving the others in place. Ultimately the council deadlocked on the question, and Miyagishima — an opponent to cannabis legalization in the first place ― cast a tie-breaking vote to quash it.

Councilors Johana Bencomo, Yvonne Flores and Becki Graham voted in favor the change. Councilors Tessa Abeyta, Becky Corran and Kasandra Gandara joined the mayor in opposition.

Harrison-Rogers said city staff supported the change because new entrants to the cannabis industry were reporting difficulties finding retail spaces, as "most of our commercial corridors back right up to single family residential zones." As a result, the city's planning and zoning commission was hearing a high number of special-use-permit applications to deviate from the residential buffer, with six approved and more pending.

A high number of special-use-permit requests indicates a likely problem with the ordinance, she remarked.

Public comments on the proposal were divided, as opponents argued against encouraging dispensaries to locate near residential neighborhoods, especially as outdoor consumption at licensed locations is still under debate. Under state law, cannabis can only be consumed publicly at licensed consumption areas. Under city code, such consumption is permitted indoors only but the city has recentlysolicited public input on allowing outdoor use at such locations.

Cannabis: Intoxicant or medicine?

The discussion demonstrated a continuing debate over whether to regulate cannabis similarly to alcohol. Cannabis has been approved for medical use overseen by the state health department since 2007. Adult use was legalized by New Mexico lawmakers in 2021, and regulated commercial sales opened in April of this year.

"Like uses such as alcohol retail sales (at) pharmacies, bars, things of that nature ... don't have buffers to single family residential zones," Harrison-Rogers said. "They also don't have buffers between one another. What we've also noticed is that we haven't seen any additional or unique land-use impacts associated with retailers or microbusinesses that have triggered any sort of code enforcement."

Las Cruces police chief Miguel Dominguez added that police have not seen a significant increase in calls for service related to cannabis.

Miyagishima was a vocal opponent of cannabis legalization, citing concerns it would be more accessible to youth, increase impaired driving and contribute to substance abuse and crime. During Monday's discussion, he announced plans to bring a proposal to the council that would establish 300-foot buffers for alcohol establishments as well.

Miyagishima told the Sun-News Tuesday his proposal will apply only to standalone liquor stores or stores where alcohol sales consist of more than 50 percent of gross sales.

Bencomo and Gandara each asked the city for an accounting of dispensaries rehabilitating abandoned commercial properties as a counter to stigmatization of cannabis enterprises. Yet for smaller operations without the capital to renovate long-empty spaces, city staff argued the buffer served as an obstacle to the industry, as 1,081 commercially zoned parcels in the city were burdened by the requirement, without a demonstrable public safety benefit.

Still, residents and advocates concerned about substance abuse in youth argued that greater proximity of cannabis businesses to households with children served to normalize cannabis use.

Several who work in the industry countered that it is the illegal market, rather than New Mexico's regulated dispensaries, that provides access to cannabis to people under the age of 21, though there was no mention that the non-regulated "street" market also sells cannabis at a lower price per gram.

Concerns were also raised that if the city eliminated the buffers and later allowed outdoor consumption areas, close neighbors would be exposed to secondhand smoke and cannabis odors.

Jimmy Nevarez, a cannabis dispensary operator, presented an alternative view, arguing that cannabis codes in the city are already too lenient. He suggested opening more commercial spaces to the industry would improperly lower the bar for more competitors.

"We're not helping the industry by allowing more usage, we're hurting it," he said. "We need to have more regulation on the current businesses that are enforced, and help them succeed; not encourage additional businesses before these ones (have) had time to flourish."

Councilor Becki Graham disclosed her own growing discomfort with the term "recreational cannabis," saying her views of cannabis have shifted from an intoxicant toward a medicinal substance.

"In the time that I've been up here, I have absolutely switched to how we compare cannabis and cannabis retail to medicine and to pharmacies," she said.

A month ago, the council voted unanimously in favor of a variance allowing Mesilla Valley Pharmacy and Pharmtrue to sell retail cannabis within 300 feet of the New America School, which is next door to the pharmacy downtown on South Main Street.

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Algernon D'Ammassa can be reached at 575-541-5451, adammassa@lcsun-news.com or @AlgernonWrites on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Las Cruces City Council keeps cannabis buffer zones