As an item on the agenda at the regular Winslow City Council meeting last week, Community Development Director Paul Ferris gave a report regarding The Medicine Room, a medical marijuana facility located at 2015 W. Third St. In that report, Ferris explained that frequent complaints of strong odor have led to the city code compliance officer, Shane Chatwin citing the business in accordance with Winslow Municipal Code Chapter 17.40.
The ordinance states, as Ferris read, “There shall be no emission of dust, fumes, vapors, or odors into the environment from the facility.” The citation was issued Sept. 28 and an arraignment court date of Oct. 25 has been set.
The Medicine Room is a medical marijuana cultivation facility that also serves as a dispensary and infusion center. It has been in business since August of 2013, in compliance with Proposition 203 of the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act and has been cultivating the plant since its inception.
The residents near The Medicine Room have called and written the Winslow Code Compliance and Community Development departments with grievances of smells since the cultivation of marijuana moved to an outdoor greenhouse on the property of the business.
Dixon Oates of The Medicine Room said, “We cultivated for a couple of years without any issues, for a couple of reasons. One is that we were contained in a building and we also weren’t very good at what we were doing, we weren’t growing any product that had such an intense odor.
Ferris said, “The first complaints of odors came in October of 2015, the complainants resided on Desert View Drive and on Papago Boulevard. Those are both located Northeast of the cultivation facility and approximately a half mile away from the facility.”
According to Ferris, those complaints were addressed by the Community Development Department immediately and an initial notice of violation was issued to the owners of The Medicine Room on Oct. 23, 2015. Ferris said, “During discussions with the city staff, management of Off Grid Development (then owners) stated their intention to install charcoal odor absorbing devices inside the greenhouse and reduce the venting of inside air.”
Those intentions were met and as Ferris stated in his report, “In late 2016, the facility owners said the charcoal filters had been installed. The city representatives including Planning and Zoning Commissioner Kevin Coolidge, City Inspector Marshall Larsen, and I toured the entire dispensary and cultivation facility on Feb. 23 and confirmed the installation of the filtering devices inside the cultivation facility. The dispensary appeared to be in full compliance with CUP 12-2 (a conditional use permit, for cultivation of marijuana).”
In addition to the charcoal filtration, Oates explained other measures taken to control the odors coming from the greenhouse. “We are doing everything we can by exploring different technologies to take care of any odors so that our neighbors and our neighboring property owners aren’t impacted by our presence in this town.”
He added that there are currently two ionizing towers in place at the facility, “They are not a carbon filtration system. They change the molecular structure of the plant terpenes, which is what creates the smell of the plant. It is not a dangerous emission, it is an odor like you’d smell from a rose. There is also a natural cycle of the sun, during the plant’s natural flower life cycle. There is nothing I can do about that. What we are growing are flowers, just so everyone understands it’s not dangerous.”
Two additional ionizing towers are in route to the facility, Oates said. Ferris corroborated this fact by saying, “Facility management recently produced a copy of an invoice, product description, and confirmation of payment for a system known as ionizing towers. They have spent over $13,000 on those towers.”
Oates explained that the additional towers were purchased before the citation was issued. Despite being found within compliance, residents continued to complain of “a skunk type smell,” resulting in the current citation being issued.
City Manager Steve Pauken added, “I have been able to detect the odor and I’m referring specifically to the skunk odor, at the very least since early summer. That odor has continued every single day and continues through today. So whatever you think you’ve been ridding yourself of is still present in the air. We have to solve the problem now and it has to be permanent.”
Oates advised the council that the strain of flower that emits the “skunk smell” has been decommissioned in his facility, due entirely to the complaints from residents.
Oates continued, “When we got our conditional use permit for the dispensary, and before we master planned the entire cultivation operation and future facility, I met with all the management decision makers of this city at the time and included Dale Patton (then city attorney). I sat in the meeting with a jar of marijuana flower and I said, ‘I want to let you know, what I’m about to do is going to smell like flower, because that is what I do, that’s what we are going to be doing.”
He recalled that city leaders went ahead and granted permits and zoning ordinances to allow the facility to be built, and to do business as intended. To that, Ferris said, “Medical marijuana uses are permitted as a conditional use, which means that they are not permitted as a use by right, but because they are so much more intense, the planning and zoning commission has the right to impose additional conditions in addition to what is stated in the ordinance itself.”
“I am going to do everything I can, and will continue doing more,” Oates said, “but please, have a little understanding. I risked a lot coming here, and I told members of the city what was going to happen and they said it was fine. I am going to do what I can to be a good citizen, but it is frustrating for me as well.”
Effort was made to contact the code compliance department for a follow up interview, but no response was provided by press time. It is not clear what the citation issued to The Medicine Room states, only that the matter will be arraigned on Oct. 25. Pauken did say, “At the present time, they are not at risk of being shut down.”
