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Eh, my state still has a lot of âdryâ towns, where booze canât be sold. I see no reason towns shouldnât be able to outlaw dispensaries, McDonaldâs, or whatever.
Okay, I get your opinion. I hope it was clear that my post simply observed that Minnesotaâs law is favorable to mj use than some other states.
I strongly disagree, unless we are truly talking about a Quacker/Amish or some otger religious community where that particular action is forbidden for itâs residents. If not, then this is just another NIMBY type action.
Why limit such consideration to religious groups?
If a community doesnât wish cannabis or alcohol or ⌠in its boundaries, and if people who disagree are free to join or form other communities; then why shouldnât the community, be it religious or secular, impose such restrictions?
(Iâll concede, however, that saying such things is much easier than actually implementing and living with such a philosophy.)
If the community members are barred from participating in such activities in neighboring communities, then i would be more supportive of such a community restriction.
However, if the people are going to the neigboring town to partake of the vice that they forbid in their own community, then that is NIMBY bullshit, imo.
towns can choose to license a business or not. of course NIMBY that shows up in those choices. âgentlemenâsâ clubs are legal - does that mean every city has to welcome one? most would say a city can deny that license for reasons. if we want to debate where the line is on what a city can choose to allow or not (like, what constitutes âessential servicesâ) thatâs different.
i do think that a city that allows alcohol sales and/or tobacco now has 0 basis for denying cannabis products.
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But thatâs the only easy way to implement such a ban. The dry county has no standing to prevent the wet county from selling to their residents. Theyâd need to hire the Alcohol Police to stop people at the border or execute search warrants for suspicion of alcohol possession.
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Iâm not sure I see the hypocrisy of a municipality deciding they want their residents to participate in a certain vice but donât want it practiced within their area. That seems like a cold cost-benefit analysis regarding hosting a profitable business.
I do see an issue with drunk drivers returning to their dry county. And with municipalities banning only substances or activities that correlate with particular ethnic groups.
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I see a difference between:
A. âI think our city needs more affordable housing, but donât build it in my neighborhood.â and
B. âIâd prefer that nobody used alcohol. I donât see the political will to ban it everywhere, but I think we can get the local govât to ban it here.â
The first says I support ___, but not here. The second says I donât support ____ anywhere, certainly not here.
Like I later clarified, if the residents of community that bans ____ are barred for partaking in ____ in another community, than this argument would hold more (devilâs) water with me. It just reeks of hypocrisy.
If youâre talking a blanket ban I would agree with you. If it was more targeted such as banning products that might be designed to be more appealing to kids then Iâd be a little more understanding. Kind of like how tobacco products are still legal but Joe Camel is not.
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Maybe if the people banning it partake, but if you are simply a resident in the community where it was banned but voted against it, I donât see how that could be hypocritical.
âare barred for partaking inâ Barred by whom? As a practical matter in the US, if a state has some dry counties, those counties canât prevent their residents from leaving the county and buying alcohol somewhere else. I donât have a problem with people who think alcohol should be illegal everywhere making it illegal in their own county, even if they understand they canât control travel.
OTOH, maybe you are talking about specific individuals who both vote to ban alcohol in their own county and also travel to other counties to drink. Yes, that would bother me, too.
Yeah, there seems to be a lot of bending over backwards to justify this type of NIMBY attitude.
I strongly disagree with most of this type of attitude.
Two possible grey areas to consider:
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Many âdryâ communities are actually âmoistâ â sale of alcohol is illegal, but possession or consumption is not. Iâd agree that this would be a reflection of NIMBYism.
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There are still a few âbone dryâ communities out there, where possession and consumption of alcohol are illegal. Thatâs fineâŚexcept when you consider people passing through the community, traveling from one wet/moist locale to another. I donât see that as NIMBY, but I do perceive it as being a complication in implementing community choice.
Of course if you want real hypocrisy â my first job after college was in a bone-dry community in the south. I started before I turned 21âŚand I had two experiences that fueled my cynicism towards real-world government:
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Shortly after I started that job, a couple of weeks before my 21st birthday, the CEO of the small carrier I was working for held a dinner party for management (which technically included me) and a few local officials. At that party, I was served my first glass of champagne by the county sheriff.
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The following spring, I was invited to partake in a local tradition among folks friendly with town and county LEOs â a party in which alcohol seized from spring breakers passing through the area on the way to the beaches in Florida was âdestroyedââŚby consumption.
I will say that there was one distinct advantage of getting married in that county â the lack of a bar at the reception meant the reception cost a heckuva lot less.
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An aggregate hypocrisy perhaps, but probably less hypocritical if the minority of residents who vote against the ban are the traveling partakers. I think most people who feel strongly enough to ban in their town probably donât partake. Those who vote to prohibit and then partake may think the way they partake is not as damaging as the average person have a fine distinction that others might not agree with. If you hate impaired driving, you might be only for residential consumption in a referendum, but then being diligent about self-limiting, partake in public elsewhere. There is plenty of nuance.
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Until cannabis is federally legal and businesses are bankable (not cash only), I can see public safety reasons other than effects of consumption being a reason to deny business permits.
I guess i was thinking exactly the reverse. Towns can be NIMBY and generally regulate âstyleâ in dozens of ways, from banning strip clubs to requiring uniform facades on downtown buildings. Why should selling weed be singled out as an area they canât control?
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Fwiw, i voted to legalize cannabis in my state, and to sell it in my town. I won the first and lost the second. But itâs okay, because itâs legal to sell in several nearby towns. And i watched a fight in the next town over on nextdoor, where some people were upset that a dispensary was going to be built that wasnât terribly far away from a school, and how awful. And a year later, someone came back and said, âi was wrong, itâs been built, and it turns out itâs not a problem at all.â And i think that will be a typical reaction. Dispensaries arenât like bars, they are like drug stores. People go in and buy stuff and move on. I donât expect opposition to them to be persistent, or to significantly impact availability.