I'm well outside of anchorage; from what I've read there are three shops open so far. But legal inventory is scarce, because of legislative/permitting delays that are mainly related to growers' land use & zoning. On my way home the other day I saw one that looks like it will be open soon, I hope it's good. The mat-su valley appears to be behind the rest of the state, and I don't know wtf is happening in the wasilla area yet.
This latest article is informative
and entertaining (to me
), as the local church ladies are trying to go against the will of the state voters, the further will of the borough voters, their local special land-use district, their elected state representatives, and their local chamber of commerce and community councils...
Getting the green light: Mat-Su pot ready to go
Borough assembly passes amended conditional-use permit for local marijuana industry
A speaker in favor of the cannabis industry during the Jan. 10 public hearing on an ordinance to regulate marijuana businesses in the borough through a conditional-use permit, at the Mat-Su Borough Assembly meeting.
PALMER — The Mat-Su Borough Assembly voted Tuesday to pass an ordinance regulating local marijuana businesses with a conditional-use permit.
The ordinance included two amendments that will immediately impact local marijuana businesses.
The biggest immediate impacts, borough-wide, are likely to be felt in regards to an amendment exempting limited cultivation facilities from having to apply for a conditional-use permit.
Such facilities are defined by the State of Alaska in part by their size of less than 500 feet.
The assembly did not pass an amendment to eliminate the permit’s 100-foot setback requirements for marijuana businesses, something cannabis advocates and several people testifying at the public hearing asked for. No assembly members motioned to introduce that ordinance.
Wearing a bright red dress, marijuana industry consultant and borough marijuana advisory committee chair Sara Williams delivered a high-volume impassioned address to the assembly during the public hearing, asking it to introduce and pass both a limited cultivation exemption, and a reduction of the permit’s setback requirements.
“My purpose in this world is to light a fire under your asses, and everyone else’s, to guide us to economic freedom,” Williams said. “The truth is without legal, regulated cannabis products being sold in state, we only go backwards. With no new reasonable tax revenue sources, we are lost.”
Several other marijuana business owners advocated for the same changes, but in the end, they got half of what they were hoping for – exemptions for limited cultivation facilities, but no reduction in setback requirements for other businesses such as retailers or large cultivators.
The biggest controversy, and the biggest surprise, of the night came from Kowalke’s introduction of an amendment to grandfather in all marijuana businesses that exist inside a borough Special Use District or Residential Land-Use District, if their state licensing applications have already been accepted at the state level, prior to the date of instituting the new local-level regulations in the borough. The amendment applies even if the application received by the state is later deemed incomplete.
more 
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Kowalke said he already caught some heat previously for calling for a moratorium on letting legal marijuana go through at the local level until a vote of the people could be held last October on the issue. Now, he said, he’s been facing demands from some in Talkeetna for yet another moratorium, to wait until the local community council updates its Special Use District, in an effort to ban McAneney’s shop.
Kowalke said he’s been unfairly maligned by a small group of people in Talkeetna, in particular, “Geri McCann and friends,” who don’t want to see McAneney’s shop go in on Mainstreet.
In discussion on the grandfathering amendment during the meeting, Kowalke noted McAneney had already faced many delays, including the most recent one related to the marijuana ordinance public hearing being cancelled during the original late-December meeting. At that time, it was determined the borough had failed to give proper public notice, and the hearing was rescheduled for Jan. 10.
“If Talkeetna through its community council has a new ordinance for assembly and planning commission to look at through new rules, so be it,” he said. “We’ll address those as they’re coming forward. This is to clear up what I think was a comedy of errors driven by the borough itself.”
