MANCHESTER, MI – A man arrived at village hall in Manchester, a small community nestled among farmland in rural western Washtenaw County, last summer with a petition with about 100 signatures on it.
The petition would have brought the question of allowing marijuana businesses, then prohibited in the village, to voters.
“It was out of the blue. We were shocked,” said Village President Patricia Vailliencourt.
The petition was ultimately withdrawn before the election, but months later Manchester is officially open to business for certain kinds of marijuana establishments, including retail dispensaries, after elected officials approved local regulations in December.
“We’re pretty much at the point where it is open for a developer if he desires to come to Manchester,” Vailliencourt said.
That’s in part due to the efforts of Sam Pernick, one of the owners of Blue Sky Cannabis Co., and the man who initially approached the village with the petition, hoping to develop a retail dispensary there.
After a meeting between the marijuana entrepreneur and village officials, as well as attorneys for both sides, Pernick agreed to withdraw the petition and let the village draft its own rules governing cannabis businesses, exercising more control over the process, Vailliencourt said.
Manchester isn’t alone in taking its time before welcoming the cannabis industry, watching marijuana development play out for early adopters like Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. But that didn’t mean officials…
