ALPENA — Alpena is on the verge of allowing the legal sale of medical marijuana in the city, but where provisioning centers will be allowed will be extremely limited.

When the sale of the drug, which is still classified as a Schedule-1 narcotic by the federal government, begins, only a pair of provisioning centers will be licensed to operate.

During Monday’s Alpena Municipal Council meeting, council voted 5-0 to have staff move forward with developing an ordinance that will allow for the commercial sale of medical marijuana in various zones in the city.

The sale of the drug will not be allowed in a large swath of downtown, despite the fact the Alpena Downtown Development Authority voted late last year to recommend they should be.

The new ordinance will address where sale of medical marijuana can occur and limits how close to parks, schools, churches, addiction treatment centers they will be allowed.

It does not address the sale of recreational marijuana, which the city opted out of last year. That matter could be reconsidered in the future.

The new ordinance, once completed and adopted, will restrict commercial sale of medical marijuana from 250 feet from parks with playground equipment, places of worship, the boys and girls club, and treatment facilities. Provisioning centers will have to be 1,000 feet from schools, as is state law.

Council has held a series of five workshops during their regular meetings discussing and debating what the appropriate safeguards are to allow for the sale of medical marijuana.

Mayor Matt Waligora, who has been a vocal supporter of allowing the sale of medical marijuana in the city and downtown, said there were a lot of opinions and concerns expressed, and not everyone got what they wanted, but at least there is a path forward established now. He said still, the new ordinance will be quite restrictive and that he wishes more than two would be allowed to open at one time.

“I won’t say it is too restrictive, but it is very restrictive and cuts down on a significant amount of real estate that will be available for them to use, we also have protections in place that we needed,” Waligora said. “I don’t think we should have had a limit because I believe in free enterprise and a free market and that would dictate the course on how many our community can support. It would also create more competition and lead to more competitive prices and service.”

Mayor Pro-Tem Cindy Johnson said a lot of work, thought and planning has gone into coming up with regulations that are fair to medical marijuana businesses and users, but also protects residents.

“I think this entire process was one big compromise, on everyone’s behalf,” Johnson said. “We needed to come up with the best decision we could make for the citizens of Alpena. There were some big compromises made by all of us.”

The next step of the process will be for council to determine how applicants for licenses will be selected by the city. That debate is expected to continue at the next regular meeting on March 2 at 6 p.m. at city hall.

Steve Schulwitz can be reached at 989-358-5689 at sschulwitz@thealpenanews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ss_alpenanews.com.