Rochester, Birmingham, Keego Harbor say no to marijuana retailers within city limits

Voters in three Oakland County communities and one Wayne County suburb overwhelmingly rejected ballot measures to permit marijuana retail establishments within city limits in Tuesday's election.

While Michigan voters legalized cannabis products statewide five years ago, the power to ban or restrict marijuana businesses remains with individual localities. The issue was on the ballot in Keego Harbor, Birmingham, and Rochester and suffered a resounding defeat in Tuesday's election. A measure in Grosse Pointe Park also failed.

Roughly 89% of Rochester voters rejected a charter amendment that would have permitted up to three recreational marijuana businesses in the city. Similarly, Birmingham voters rejected by about 74%-26% a ballot measure to lift the ban on marijuana sales in the city and allow one medical and one recreational facility to operate in the city.

Three ballot proposals in Keego Harbor would have regulated the operation of marijuana retail establishments in the city, but none passed.

A proposal that would have allowed for the regulation of one retailer and prohibited the operation of all other marijuana establishments was rejected by 53% of voters. Roughly 61% of voters rejected a proposal to put the number of marijuana retail establishments permitted in the city on the ballot in the next regular election, and 60% of voters defeated a third ballot question that would have created a regulatory process for two retail cannabis businesses.

The message from the Keego Harbor community is clear, said Mayor Robert Kalman, who won re-election to the City Council last night as well.

"The local voters who I saw coming out were people I knew who have been in town quite a long time, and they were... against marijuana coming to the city," Kalman said.

Low voter turnout in the off-year election makes it hard to predict results when it comes to ballot measures, Kalman said.

"In the off-year, the people coming out to vote are the ones who are really ideologically informed and heavily opinionated," Kalman said. "They're either going to be really for marijuana or they're going to be really against it."

The proposed Open Stores Ordinance and Cannabis Licensing Charter Amendments were backed by the Open Stores in Keego Harbor Committee, which is based in Stockbridge, according to campaign finance records.

Kalman said Keego Harbor residents received a flood of mailers, texts and other literature from the group leading up to the election, and many may have been overwhelmed or annoyed.

"It was almost overkill for people that were on the fence," Kalman said. "I don't think people appreciated an outside group coming into our city and trying to change the charter and the ordinances."

While supporters argued that cannabis retailers would support the local economy in Keego Harbor, Kalman does not feel like the city is missing out on business opportunities.

"Having a dispensary next to a new development will have the opposite effect of what you want to have," Kalman said.

Also in Tuesday's election, Royal Oak voters approved a resolution in favor of replacing traditional elections with ranked choice voting, a system in which voters can rank all candidates for a given office on their ballot as opposed to selecting only one. It passed with 51% of the vote, but is largely symbolic because ranked choice voice would require a change in state law.

And in Southfield, Oakland County Commissioner Janet Jackson was elected clerk in the city of Southfield. She'll replace Sherikia Hawkins, who resigned last year after pleading no contest to election-related criminal charges.