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She had to say something.
Speaker after speaker at the Prince George’s County Council meeting had just railed against the very business that Chante Goodwin, 35, hoped to launch as a Black woman intent on joining the green rush ushered in when Maryland legalized adult cannabis sales.
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One county resident compared dispensaries to sex shops. “What happened to just say no?” another asked, referencing a Reagan-era slogan on drug prevention. Most who’d come to the Wayne K. Curry Administration Building on this recent Tuesday pleaded for the Council to relegate the businesses to industrial zones.
This affluent, majority-Black enclave of Washington, D.C., lacks the amenities they do want, some residents argued, while leaving certain neighborhoods littered with liquor stores and smoke shops without decent grocery shopping options in sight.
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Goodwin, a Suitland resident and real estate broker, stepped to the lectern to remind those in attendance that controlling the location of dispensaries would not eradicate concerns about youth consumption or other illegal use
“I was called to speak because I did hear … a lot of, ‘I don’t like it.’ ‘I don’t like the smell.’ ‘I don’t like this,’” she said in an interview. “How does putting us in an industrial zone prevent any of those issues?”
While people overwhelmingly voted for legalization here, proposed rules are dusting up old associations with marijuana and invigorating an enduring debate about how to safeguard a reputation of prestige while meeting the growing needs of Prince George’s County. Even as entrepreneurs and state officials make the case that retail sales could help lift communities here, in one of Maryland’s hardest-hit counties during the War on Drugs, many residents remain unmoved.
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The tension is coming to a head over a proposal before the county that would funnel new dispensaries away from highly visible retail locations, mirroring a recent move to restrict tobacco shops to industrial zones. Yet, the bill has some council members concerned about possible legal challenges from the cannabis industry, and racial minorities wanting to enter the industry questioning whether Prince George’s is the place for them to set up shop.
People like Goodwin who want to diversify the cannabis industry in Maryland are asking lawmakers to relax proposed rules. If they don’t, several entrepreneurs told the council they may locate elsewhere — plans met by murmurings of, “‘Good. We don’t want you here,’” from the audience, Goodwin recalled.
In September, the county’s office of law wrote a memorandum stating that the current bill could be subject to challenge as it could be seen as “an undue burden on cannabis licensees because it would require both a rezoning and the approval of a special exception.” Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission also wrote a memo echoing the same sentiment.
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Council member Wanika Fisher (D-District 2) sought to rectify those agencies’ reservations by introducing amendments to the bill that would permit incoming dispensaries to be placed in commercial areas of the county, but her additions were unsuccessful.
The council advanced the proposal last week, over concerns from Fisher. The bill has a scheduled public hearing date of Nov. 21 at 10 a.m. where members of the public can share their comments before the council makes another, final vote and the bill becomes law.
County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks’s office supports the advanced version, which deputy director of communications Anthony McAuliffe said balances concerns of businesses and residents.
“We believe the latest version of this legislation strikes the proper balance between our business community and residential community, which is why we announced our support of the legislation,” he said in a statement. “We hope that if the council passes this legislation, they continue to monitor its impact and make adjustments if they are needed, so we can continue to balance the concerns of both businesses and residents.”
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The bill does not need Alsobrooks’s approval because zoning authority rests with the council.
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Missing from the debate, Fisher and other dispensary advocates said, is the promise of social equity measures that state lawmakers cited as a driving reason to pursue cannabis legalization. The County Council is still working to stand up a Cannabis Reinvestment and Restoration Board, which would receive State Community Reinvestment and Repair Fund dollars given to communities disproportionately affected by the War on Drugs.
About 90 percent of people arrested in Prince George’s County for possessing more than 10 grams of marijuana between 2018 and 2019 were Black, and Black people comprised about 64 percent of the population, an American Civil Liberties Union analysis found. The organization’s research shows that Black and White people consume marijuana at roughly the same rate.
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Prince George’s has the second highest number of Zip codes in the state eligible for the Maryland Social Equity Criteria, with a total of 18 Zip codes where cannabis charges exceeded 150 percent of the 10-year state average. Baltimore had 19.
Baltimore city and surrounding areas have more fully embraced the business, said Keisha J. Reed, chief executive of Explore Maryland Cannabis, a cannabis-focused community membership and outreach organization.
In May, Baltimore City became the first community in Maryland to start a formalization process creating a process for cannabis reparations.
Reed, a Prince George’s native, said she hopes the county won’t miss out on a potentially meaningful moment. “This is not new [for the county] … as far as, you know, just being behind the eight ball when it comes to kind of placing yourself in a box where it just doesn’t make sense. You don’t see the light, but the light is right there,” she said.
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While the county is a bastion of Black wealth, it is also home to deep needs and lacks the diversified tax base leaders say would truly help to meet them. Residents left shouldering the weight with an increasing property tax burden have long voiced frustrations about commercial development and amenities bypassing the county for adjacent localities. But in the absence of the development residents want, many are vocal about what they don’t want.
Fisher, who once prosecuted Prince Georgians for marijuana possession, hopes the convergence of these truths won’t yield a higher price tag for taxpayers.
“I want to make sure we’re [ …] keeping our fiduciary duty as the council, but we don’t just blindly pass things knowing we’ll be sued,” Fisher said. “Every time we go to court, it costs money. It’s your money. It’s the people’s money.”
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Goodwin, who said she comes from a long line of entrepreneurs, intends to be one of the applicants the state is seeking to help when it opens up a second round of licenses specifically for entrepreneurs who meet criteria for being social equity applicants beginning Nov. 13.
While she said she understands the hesitations of generations of people who lived through the crack epidemic and are confronted by an opioid epidemic, she hopes for a continued shift in public perception toward a substance the state has legalized.
“I really want to be an example for people that want to legally enter this industry of how we can take something that we were previously punished for, figure out how to do it legally, how to participate in this industry where we may not have another opportunity outside of this social equity application because the competition is going to be so fierce,” she said.
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Kal Shah, founder and chief executive of Waave Dispensary in Greenbelt, knows firsthand how difficult it can be to find suitable locations. He attended the recent council meeting to ask that lawmakers not restrict the placement of new stores, which he said are being unfairly lumped in with liquor and smoke shops that are not subject to the same degree of regulatory scrutiny.
“If you’re in the industrial zone, you have almost no visibility, no signage, no parking or very limited parking,” he said in an interview. “And on top of that, you can’t advertise. So how are people going to find you, how are people going to get to you?”
Banks and financial institutions are not providing loans to cannabis entrepreneurs because marijuana remains illegal under federal law, he said, which leaves few options to attain start-up capital — posing disproportionate barriers for racial minorities.
“I know for a fact that in the marketplace, people are charging 15 percent interest rates to borrow money because you’re borrowing from a hard lender, a private-equity person,” he said.
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