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Tulsa Zoning Regulations for Medical Marijuana Delayed

Tulsa zoning regulations for medical marijuana are temporarily on hold.

They’re going back to INCOG for a couple changes before potentially coming to the city council for approval later this month. Attorney Ronald Durbin, who was involved in the lawsuit against Broken Arrow's medical marijuana ordinances, said one problem is their borrowed definition of "marijuana" is too broad.

"You’re not intending to regulate CBD, industrial hemp, things of that nature, but the definition is so poorly written, stolen from the Department of Health’s poorly written definition, that you’re encompassing a lot of areas you’re not intending to encompass," Durbin said.

Durbin said Tulsa's regulations are also too restrictive in limiting the range of operations considered processors to heavy industrial areas.

"A lab doesn’t need to be in a medium industrial, and people who are utilizing water and ice to process and do other kinds of processes don’t need to be in medium or heavy industrial zoning areas. And we’ve got people already having buildings in light industrial zoning," Durbin said.

INCOG’s Susan Miller said industry advocates' request for a special exception process isn’t as easy as it sounds.

"Right now, under our industrial category it’s light, moderate or heavy. It would have to just be its own category of medical marijuana processing because none of those allow for a special exception," Miller said.

Another provision Durbin objected to, a 1,000 foot spacing requirement between medical marijuana commercial establishments, will stay in the zoning regulations. City councilors said they are confident in advice from the city legal department that provision will pass muster.

Matt Trotter joined KWGS as a reporter in 2013. Before coming to Public Radio Tulsa, he was the investigative producer at KJRH. His freelance work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and on MSNBC and CNN.