ANNA MARIA – The city commission has adopted a resolution providing the sales and registration requirements allowing existing CBD and hemp sellers to continue those sales by acquiring city-approved grandfathering status.
City Attorney Becky Vose presented Resolution 24-796 to the city commission on May 23 and the commission unanimously adopted the resolution on first and final reading. Vose plans to present the accompanying grandfathering registration form on June 13.
The adopted resolution and the still-pending registration form will work in unison with a recently amended city ordinance prohibiting the sale, processing or manufacturing of any product derived from cannabis (marijuana) plants – including medicinal marijuana, CBD and hemp products – while creating grandfathering exceptions for businesses that already sold limited amounts of CBD and/or hemp products as of April 1.
There are currently no full-blown CBD stores in Anna Maria and the commission’s goal is to prevent that from happening. The grandfathering provision cannot be obtained by an existing business or a new business after July 1.
The recently-adopted grandfathering provision, the newly-adopted city resolution and the soon-to-be-approved registration form satisfy the mayor and commission’s regulatory concerns while still allowing those few existing businesses to continue selling the CBD and hemp products that few realized were illegal in Anna Maria until earlier this year.
CBD and hemp products are legal statewide but Anna Maria is an exception to that rule, similar to a dry city or county that doesn’t allow alcohol sales. State-compliant CBD sales are allowed in the neighboring city of Holmes Beach, throughout Bradenton and in unincorporated Manatee County.
RESOLUTION PRESENTED
When presenting the resolution to the city commission on May 23, Vose said, “As you recall, we did change our marijuana ordinance having to do with businesses that have a fixed physical location, not to include mobile sales, in the city of Anna Maria and sell products that would otherwise be prohibited in the ordinance. This would allow them to continue.”
The resolution states all grandfathering applications must be submitted to the city by July 1 on forms to be provided by the city.
“In addition to information about the grandfather applicant and location, the grandfather applications must include a listing of relevant products sold by the business and the quantity of such products that were purchased/sold from March 1-31 and photographs of then-current supplies of relevant products,” the resolution states.
The resolution also states, “Grandfather applications must be submitted under oath and notarized.”
Vose noted the resolution gives the mayor the authority to oversee and tweak the registration and enforcement processes as needed.
COMMISSION INSIGHTS
Commissioner Gary McMullen questioned the need for the grandfathered businesses to list and photograph their CBD and/or hemp product inventory and whether that might be burdensome for the business owners.
“It’s in the very recent past and they should be able to give us that information,” Vose responded. “Then they’d give us photographs of then-current supplies of the product so we have some kind of feel for the product they have.”
Vose said there’s a finite number of hemp and CBD products already being offered for sale in Anna Maria and those business owners already have a pretty good idea of what they have and how much they’re selling.
“I don’t think this will be terribly burdensome, but if it ends up being terribly burdensome, there is the authority for the mayor to tweak this,” Vose said. “We don’t want a gift shop that happens to sell some CBD products to all of the sudden turn into a head shop where 95% of what they sell are these products.”
Commissioner Charlie Salem said, “I think the intent is to make sure we’re not going beyond the grandfathering. Let’s let them continue what they’ve been doing but you don’t want them to be exclusive dealers of a much broader set of these products. I think this is a way to make sure there’s something on record so we all can rest easy that they’re going to comply with what they get through the grandfathering.”
“This resolution effectively is putting a stake in the ground,” Commissioner Mark Short said, noting the resolution states that grandfathered businesses can’t increase their CBD or hemp product offerings. “It’s limiting them to where they were at as of April 1st.”
Short noted the city is aware of three Anna Maria businesses currently selling CBD or hemp products, but there might be more.
The North Shore Café offers food and drink items made with hemp powder that contains trace amounts of THC. The Cool Beans AMI coffee shop sells CBD items in addition to its coffee, food, beverage and other offerings. AMI Beach & Dog Supply sells canine-grade CBD products among its many other offerings.
Mayor Dan Murphy said the plan is to contact every business that operates in Anna Maria and ask them if they’re carrying any CBD or hemp products. If so, they have until July 1 to register for the grandfathering provision. Murphy said the business owners will be given a copy of the resolution so they know what’s expected of them.
“I’m not going to make it burdensome,” Murphy pledged.
The city’s efforts to regulate CBD sales come at a time when additional CBD restrictions proposed by the Florida Legislature are still awaiting a final decision by Gov. Ron DeSantis. If the state decreases the allowed potency and THC content of CBD products, Anna Maria’s CBD grandfathered sellers must comply with the new state law.
