FENNVILLE — The city of Fennville has legalized medical marijuana establishments, months after it legalized recreational ones.

Mayor Tom Pantelleria said after the city opted to allow recreational marijuana businesses with ordinances passed in February, entrepreneurs approached the city expressing interest in setting up medical marijuana businesses as well.

“It just followed suit that medical should be allowed as well, so we tried to mirror it with the ordinances for recreational,” Pantelleria said.

Medical marijuana sales had previously only been legal in Fennville as a home occupation.

The city commission also passed regulations prohibiting medical marijuana businesses from the central business district.

“We want to keep it a little bit more discreet from kids and people who aren’t in favor it,” Pantelleria said of the commission’s decision to ban the businesses from Main Street.

Medical marijuana business will be limited by a cap established when the city passed its recreational marijuana ordinances.

Only two of each kind of marijuana establishment — retail establishment, grower, processer, transporter, etc. — will be permitted, whether medical or recreational.

A dispensary holding both medical and recreational licenses from the city counts as one establishment for the purposes of the cap.

The city commission was split on imposing the limits on the number of businesses, but the amendment passed 4-3. Pantelleria voted against the cap.

“I knew there were three or four entrepreneurs, businesses, who had some interest in possibly locating a business in town, so I didn’t understand why we would want to restrict that,” Pantelleria said. “Let the market decide how many facilities.”

The city charges a $5,000 fee to obtain a marijuana business license.

Other regulations on medical marijuana businesses mirror the city’s ordinances governing adult-use marijuana sales, passed in February.

Fennville’s first marijuana dispensary is expected to open this fall in the former Fennville city government office buildiing, 222 Maple St.

— Contact reporter Carolyn Muyskens at cmuyskens@hollandsentinel.com and follow her on Twitter at @cjmuyskens.