An individual is wanting to petition the state to put a medical marijuana dispensary in the Bald Knob area, according to city officials.
However, a state official told The Daily Citizen that a lawsuit is prohibiting the state from issuing any more licenses at this time, and the only way that Bald Knob could get a dispensary right now is if an existing one requested a transfer.
Councilman David Smith said the possibility of the city being home to a “cannabis dispensary” was brought to his attention by Bald Knob Planning Commission Chairwoman Diane Steele.
“Now, there’s a lot of people frowned on it but I can tell you they are going to petition to put it in either the city limits or just outside the city limits,” Smith said. “If we’re going to have it that close, I think we should have it and collect the revenue off of it. That’s something we need to think about and maybe vote on because they need to go ahead before they start to petition whether we’re going to allow it to be in the city limits.
“And I’d be safe in saying we would probably collect enough revenue off that as we do everything else in this town. We would double our revenue.”
Mayor Gary Looney said he told the person interested in bringing in a dispensary that it did not matter how he felt about it, it would be something she would have to take to the planning commission. “I told her there’s a pretty good mixture on that planning commission and she could get a pretty good barometer.”
The commission’s next meeting is Tuesday in City Hall at 6 p.m.
Smith said that the city is “not very smart … from a business standpoint, if we don’t allow it.” He said people now are driving 50 or 60 miles “to buy that stuff. Just like alcohol – they’re going to find the alcohol. They’re going to find the cannabis wherever. And it’s more than marijuana – it’s gummies, gum and things. I think it is something we really should look at for the financial [sake] of this town.”
Looney said one thing Steele pointed out to him was that because it would be for “medical marijuana, if you don’t have a medical card, you can’t even get in the building, because in Arkansas there is no recreational marijuana.”
Smith said, “If we don’t get it, the county is going to.”
Scott Hardin, spokesperson for the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration, said any dispensary considering Bald Knob would have to be an “existing dispensary located in another community that wants to transfer to a new location, and the Medical Marijuana Commission must approve the transfer.”
Hardin said as of right now, “we do not have any pending requests from dispensaries to move locations. The most recent transfer was a dispensary that moved from Fayetteville to Eureka Springs. If a dispensary does file an application to move to Bald Knob, that request would be considered at an upcoming Medical Marijuana Commission meeting.”
According to Hardin, there are 38 dispensaries in the state and Amendment 98 passed by voters in 2016 allows for a maximum of 40. “The Medical Marijuana Commission is prohibited from issuing the two remaining licenses due to a lawsuit filed against the commission.”
Amendment 98 also allows for a maximum of eight cultivators/growers, which is what the state has. “Arkansans spent $276.3 million to purchase 50,600 pounds of medical marijuana in 2022,” Hardin said.
