Winter Park mulls medical marijuana restrictions

Winter Park might be on the verge of regulating medical marijuana before this year’s general election.

Mayor Ken Bradley brought up the issue of legalization during last Monday’s City Commission meeting, hoping to better prepare the city in advance and help decide Winter Park’s course of action regarding further regulations.

Bradley said he met with the Orange County Council of Mayors on July 25 to discuss the potential distribution and sale of medical marijuana if it passes on the state ballot this November.

“There are a lot of questions that are going to be coming from this,” Bradley said at the Winter Park City Commission meeting last Monday. “If this passes, for example, can a person smoke marijuana in a public park? Where could this be dispensed and how would it be dispensed?”

A potential medical marijuana ordinance is already in the works in Orange County, Bradley said. Winter Park wouldn’t be required to pass regulations of its own if the county takes action, but the city can still pass its own ordinance, he said.

“I guess we could take something that’s more restrictive than the county, but we’re not obligated to take any specific action,” Bradley said.

Maitland took a step toward a medical marijuana ordinance of its own back in April. The legislation would regulate the sale of medical marijuana to only one zoning district in the entire city.

A single building sits in that zoning district, located just across the street from the Maitland Police station.

“This is an effective way of doing it without saying it’s prohibited, because it’s not,” Maitland City Attorney Cliff Shepard said during the City Council meeting on April 28. The zoning rules would help the city protect itself, he said, preparing Maitland for state regulations in advance.

The ordinance will go before Maitland’s Planning and Zoning Commission on Aug. 21, said Community Development Director Dick Wells.

Bradley told the City Commission that he personally doesn’t support the legalization of medical marijuana in Florida, saying that he plans on voting “no” on the statewide November amendment.

“I, for one, don’t want to wake up and walk down Park Avenue and Central Park and realize people are smoking marijuana,” Bradley, who is also the CEO of Winter Park Memorial Hospital, said. “I don’t think that would be good for our citizens.”

But Bradley’s stance would sit in overwhelming minority according to a study done by Quinnipiac University in Connecticut last month. The study shows that 88 percent of Florida voters support legalized marijuana for medical use.

The Winter Park City Commission gave city attorney Larry Brown the go ahead to study the medical marijuana issue and work with Orange County’s attorney.

“I don’t know what the right thing to do at this point is, but I think we certainly need to track the county’s ordinance through this and see if it can be applicable-based,” Bradley said.

“It’s a critical issue that we look at.”