HOUGHTON, Mich. (WLUC) – On April 22nd Houghton’s City Council passed an ordinance, by a vote of 4 to 3, to allow recreational marijuana retailers to operate within the city. Currently the ordinance would only allow for a single recreational licensed retailer.

“That’s the way it was passed, now whether the councilors would request that the planning commission look at addressing additional licenses within the zone which it is permitted in right now would be up to the council,” said Eric Waara, Houghton’s City Manager.

Already there has been interest from the medical marijuana dispensary in Houghton to acquire a recreational license.

“Since the ordinance has been passed we will be going through with applying to the city, and hopefully we’ll be granted a license and be able to sell adult use marijuana products,” said Penny Milkey, Co-Owner of Northern Specialty Health.

While this is the first step towards recreational sales in Houghton two separate ordinances would need to be passed as well before any license applications could be processed.

“We still have to take up the changes to the Medical Marijuana ordinance and the potential of then opting in to recreational sales. I would presume that those discussions would happen at our next meeting on May 13th,” said Waara.

While it will still take some time to actually start selling, retailers are excited about the opportunity this could bring.

“The demand is very high and we get a lot of phone calls about it. We’re happy for our friends that are able to sell in other parts of the upper peninsula, but we really want to draw people to Houghton because we know it would be so beneficial for the city, the restaurants, the businesses, the hotels, everybody would benefit,” said Milkey.