Applications by Canna Get Happy owners Sandra and Troy Millhouse for a variance permit and a conditional use permit to operate a retail marijuana establishment were both denied by the City of Kenai Planning and Zoning Commission during their last meeting on Aug. 14.
The move came after the Kenai City Council in June asked the state not to issue a retail marijuana store license for a proposed location in Swanson Square next to Salvation Army along the Kenai Spur Highway. Canna Get Happy had failed to obtain a commercial use permit because the building was found to be within the city’s defined buffer distances — specifically, it was too close to both the Steve Shearer Memorial Ball Park and the Kenai Little League Fields.
During that meeting, Sandra Millhouse said she had purchased the property after being told by then-Kenai Planning Director Linda Mitchell that the location was compliant with city code. That claim was central to the argument presented by Millhouse and by Richard Moses, who prepared the application.
“That’s the issue before you,” Moses said. “This is an issue about fairness.”
But City Attorney Scott Bloom told the commission that whether that claim is true, it’s not a condition that they are responsible for weighing. Instead, he said, they’re tasked with reviewing the proposed variance and conditional use permit under the city code.
Vice Chair John Coston asked whether there is any proof or written documentation of the alleged approval, and Millhouse said it existed only verbally. She said Mitchell told her first that she could operate a marijuana establishment on the property, but then Millhouse says Mitchell said over the phone that the city had “measured wrong.” That was, Millhouse said, after they purchased the property, began the remodel and applied for a permit.
A pair or resolutions, one denying the variance request and another denying the conditional use permit, were passed unanimously.
Interim Planning Director Max Best delivered a prepared report to the commission from his department that said the proposed location, at 11888 Kenai Spur Highway in Kenai, fails to meet the criteria necessary for approval. That includes a lack of “special conditions or circumstances” that warrant approval of a variance.
The staff report says that though the property owners say that the building is only valuable as a commercial marijuana establishment, there are “many other uses permitted.”
Deniece Isaacs was the first to speak during public comment. She owns The Gardens, another retail marijuana establishment located further north along the Kenai Spur Highway. She also previously tried and failed to open her store in the same location as Millhouse in 2016.
Canna Get Happy should not receive the variance and permit, Isaacs said, because her business didn’t either. She said that the city code is clear, and that opposition from baseball and softball players — as well as the Kenaitze Indian Tribe — had been loud.
“One person was denied,” she said. “The next person should be denied on that basis as well.”
Canna Get Happy’s owners, Isaacs said, are not new to marijuana sales — they operate three other locations — and should have better done their due diligence. If they received approval to operate in the location, Isaacs said, she might feel she has “suffered damages.”
A few people who live nearby, including Teea Winger, Nancy Wiles and Jim Glendening, also expressed concerns for their neighborhoods and for the nearby ball fields.
Glendening said that the buffers were created after much thought and for a reason. He doesn’t want to see them reduced or modified.
Millhouse has also said that other marijuana establishments have received variances to operate. Best told the commission of three examples where there were discussions and even discrepancies about measuring the buffers, but said no variances had been issued.
Those instances, he said, include a store opened within the buffer distance to the building that houses the Kenai Peninsula Economic Development District, nearly considered an educational facility because of a course they were hosting; a store opened near a church in north Kenai where there were questions about which entrance was the “main entrance;” and East Rip directly adjacent to Millennium Square in Kenai — the square was determined not to be a recreational facility.
Member Diane Fikes, speaking in support of denying the requests, echoed Glendening’s thoughts. The city’s code was created after much discussion, she said, to create a vision specific to Kenai. That code is “well established,” even when “it’s unfortunate that an error occurred.”
The full meeting of the planning and zoning commission can be found at “City of Kenai — Public Meetings” on YouTube.
Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.
