It was standing room only at a meeting on Tuesday in New Buffalo Township as residents voiced their concerns and asked questions about all of the new marijuana businesses that have opened in town in recent years.
The township organized the meeting because trustees hear a lot of questions during their regular township board meetings that can’t be answered at that time. New Buffalo Township Police Department Lieutenant Thad Chartrand led the session and tells us many of the concerns are around crime created by the dispensaries, but he’s been following the statistics.
“The cannabis dispensaries have not brought crime,” Chartrand said. “They have brought extra calls for service due to traffic crashes such as private property crashes, medical calls, and alarms because, of course, these places are alarmed and alarms do go off occasionally, as typical with a lot of businesses that are alarmed.”
Chartrand says there are also complaints about extra traffic, and indeed, the marijuana establishments have caused a few problems.
“Those cars are coming in and they’re not using the stop signs at the end of Interstate I-94. With the increased traffic, they are pulling out in front of other people on U.S. Highway 12 because there is more traffic. And they do make U-turns because, of course, they’re generally from out of the area.”
While making U-turns isn’t illegal in Michigan, that does take some residents aback. Some also have concerns about how the marijuana businesses could be affecting younger generations.
“One of their main concerns is what’s the impact of the cannabis industry going to do to the community, especially the young children of the community, and what’s being done to try to combat maybe the false or the black eye that the cannabis community is showing to the youth that maybe it’s okay to do drugs or to do that type of narcotic.”
As far as traffic, Chartrand says the township is already working to address the issues by installing traffic cameras to identify where and when the most speeding is taking place and seeking new traffic lights at key intersections and along key roads. That’s not all.
“We’re working in conjunction with the Michigan Department of Transportation trying to get signs posted along M-239 near Wilson Road and I-94, where the U-turns and the parking along the highway becomes a nuisance, becomes a traffic problem. So we’re working in conjunction with MDOT to try to put some signage up there.”
Although he can’t say if the marijuana businesses have been good for the community, Chartrand notes the area of the township closest to the Indiana state line has seen some revitalization.
“That was a lot of rundown older buildings. The township wanted to, they felt that that would be a good location for the special land use permits to go into effect, and that would also possibly help try to clean up some of the older rundown buildings and clean up the blight by putting in these nicer, newer buildings.”
New Buffalo Township currently has 29 operational dispensaries and another five or six being completed. All in all, Chartrand describes Tuesday’s meeting as worth holding, with more than 110 people in attendance.
“I think it was twofold. I think it was great on both sides for people to understand. And now the township can begin to, the board members can get together and discuss their thoughts and some of the ideas that some of the residents brought to the New Buffalo Township Board and what they would like to see done and how they can work on that over the course of the next one to three years.”
Chartrand is planning to meet with the township’s marijuana businesses in March to discuss traffic issues further. That’s as police seek to prepare for the rush of visitors for 4/20.
