Alaska News

As marijuana becomes legal, Unalaska passes restrictive city ordinances

Marijuana legalization took effect Tuesday in Alaska, and a last week the Unalaska City Council voted to amend city ordinances to reflect the new reality, though with tight restrictions on public use.

The council voted 6-0 in a special meeting Friday morning, Feb. 20, to have the new rules in effect when legalization arrived a few days later. The new rules set $100 fines for smoking pot in public and for consumption by persons under 21 years of age.

Former City Councilor Dennis Robinson said the council should respect local voters' 57 percent approval of Ballot Measure 2 allowing the possession of 1 ounce of marijuana in November. That's when they disregarded the city council's dire warnings. In a Oct. 28 resolution, the city council opposed legalization as an "extreme measure" and "a step backward."

The new ordinance bans public use in bars, on beaches, and all city property, following the advice of the city's Anchorage law firm, Boyd, Chandler and Falconer.

"For the purpose of prohibiting public use, the definition of 'public place' is similar to the definition in the secondhand smoke chapter, except that we have struck 'enclosed' and broadened the examples to specify open spaces such as roads and parks," City Attorney Charles A. Cacciola wrote in a Feb. 2 memo to the mayor and other city officials.

"We believe that this definition provides the broadest restriction on public use permissible," Cacciola said, though he added that the council has the option of adopting a more oppressive policy by banning "quasi public use" on boats.

According to the new ordinance, "'public place' means any area to which the public is permitted, including but not limited to, educational facilities, entertainment, food and beverage services, offices, retail stores, common areas in multi-unit buildings such as lobbies, stairwells and hallways, transportation facilities and vehicles accessible to the general public, parks, public right-of-way, shorelines, tidelands, as well as all city-owned property."

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A business manager or owner who allows pot consumption on their premises is subject to a $100 fine for the first offense, and $500 for subsequent violations within a 12-month period.

Unalaska Deputy Police Chief Michael Holman said legalization isn't a big issue. He said police seldom made arrests for simple possession, and that possession charges typically resulted when people were arrested on other charges like drunk driving and marijuana was found among their belongings as they were being checked into a jail cell.

And Holman said that with a brand new law, much remains unclear and predicted that clarification will come from the judicial system as new marijuana cases are decided in state courts.

Gov. Bill Walker introduced a bill Monday that would create a Marijuana Control Board in charge of regulating the industry in the state and giving the board the power to enforce its laws, which would create a new board housed under the Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development under Senate bill 60.

The option of creating a Marijuana Control Board was included in Ballot Measure 2, the initiative that voters passed on Nov. 4, 2014 legalizing marijuana.

Walker's bill was forwarded to the House Labor and Commerce Committee.

This story first appeared in The Bristol Bay Times/Dutch Harbor Fisherman and is republished here with permission.

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