The Amsterdam of Alaska: pot businesses sit down with Spenard

As potential businesses across the state get ready for commercial cannabis sales, communities are beginning to meet their new neighborhood pot dealers. And growers and processors, too. As part of an ongoing series profiling one new marijuana business hoping to open up shop, we look at how communities are trying to have a say at the most local level.

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“My name is Jane Stinson, I’m a third of a business — a cannabis business — called Enlighten Alaska,” said the 64-year-old Stinson, introducing herself to a cinder-block room filled with a few dozen residents inside the the Spenard Recreation Center.

Stinson’s presentation was part of a monthly meeting among the neighborhood’s community council, the hyper-local body of residents in each part of town, who convene once a month to weigh in on issues like roads, development projects, and new businesses coming into the area.

“This is the face of cannabis,” Stinson genially continued. Her plan is to lease a nearby storefront where she’ll open a retail pot shop in the months ahead, potentially expanding to offer an area for on-site consumption as state regulations evolve.

Businesses like Enlighten Alaska are required by the state to issue public notices to nearby communities as part of their application process. At this meeting, SCC President Jedediah Smith told residents the measure up for discussion is whether or not to set up a small committee that can review permits when the full community council is out of session this summer.

“It seems like moving forward we’re not necessarily looking to pass resolutions of support specifically for a business, but more set up a communication agreement with businesses that want to come into the neighborhood,” said Smith.

Which is to say: they aren’t for or against anyone yet–they just want a resolution that helps them to get to know potential operators like Stinson.

And that’s not a particularly controversial prospect for folks in the Rec Center. The resolution passed 17 to 0 among dues-paying members able to cast votes.

After the meeting, as people stacked chairs and dumped out the last of the coffee, Stinson said the unanimous vote is a great sign, and means she can move ahead drafting what’s called a ‘neighborhood responsibility plan’ to bring to the next council meeting.

“A neighborhood responsibility plan is basically an open dialogue, a communication tool that we’re gonna be using if there are any issues that come up we have a way to address them and discuss them,” Stinson said.

A line of communication is especially important in this neighborhood, because a lot of new pot businesses are expected to open here.

“I think that Spenard in the past has been known as the red light district,” said Jay Stange, vice-president of the council. “We’re concerned that we might become the ‘green light district.'”

Stange said that because the permit system goes through the state and the full Anchorage Assembly, communities don’t have any binding power over whether or not a business gets approved to open. Instead, they preside over a review of nitty-gritty details that have a direct impact on residents.

“We have the power to regulate these businesses just like we would regulate any other business: By asking them about their parking, asking about their hours of operation, asking them about traffic impacts,” Stange said.

The meetings this summer are designed to work through business plans and particular regulations together, bringing everyone on the same page.

“The role of this committee is to review applications, and right now I think we might have six or seven affecting the Spenard area,” Stange explained. That number is higher than the total permits submitted for entire towns and boroughs across the state.

“We’ve had questions in our community: do we want to be the Amsterdam of Alaska?” Stange asked.

In other parts of town, the dialogue between the community council and new businesses hasn’t gone quite as smoothly.

A swath of South Anchorage with abundant industrial zoning and prime real-estate for commercial cannabis falls under the Taku Cambell Community Council. Jeff Lanfield is president of that council (and also a candidate running for state senate), and said that in the last four to five months meetings have been consumed with presentations, confusing arguments over regulations, and tangents about marijuana.

“I think there’s a whole bunch of unintended consequences for the people that really decided they wanted to pass this law — they really wanted legal marijuana,” Lanfield said by phone. “But then it’s like ‘where’d they all go?’ when it comes to implementing the policies.”

But in Spenard, people seem more interested at this point in how businesses will operate, rather than any kind of referendum on if they should open at all.

Stange is a school teacher and has two kids of his own. He’s thought a lot about the impacts of commercial cannabis at the community level, and believes that what local groups have some influence over is helping a business like Stinson’s figure out how to be a good neighbor in the months ahead.

“We’re trying to have an open line of communication with these people who want to be our neighbors and want to be our venders,” Stange said. “And we want to make sure we know them, we want to make sure they know us, and we want to make sure that whatever they do it’s gonna be a positive thing in our community.”

Stinson, with Enlighten Alaska, is happy to oblige. Even though she lives in a different part of town, she’s begun paying dues to be an official member of the community council in Spenard.