Detroit Council Enacts Dispensary Fees of Nearly $4k

Any of the medical cannabis caregiver centers in Detroit proper that survive the ongoing licensing process will have to pony up almost $4,000 in fees to the city, under new rules approved by the city council.

Licensing and inspection fees will be a new experience for Detroit dispensaries; until now, they’ve operated almost completely without any government oversight. But under the new rules, any business applying for a license during the only permitting window available – the month of March – will have to pay $1,470 just to apply for a license, and then a $2,276 fee to the city’s department of health for an inspection, Crain’s Detroit Business reported.

As of Friday, 132 businesses had applied for dispensary licenses in Detroit, according to Crain’s. But many of those were from outside the city and don’t represent any of the estimated 211 existing dispensaries.

And due to a new and highly restrictive zoning ordinance, which some MMJ stakeholders are fighting, many of those 200-plus storefronts won’t survive because they’re too close to “drug-free zones.”