Outdoor weed parks? They may be coming to a city near you.
Included in the law that legalized recreational use of cannabis is a provision that will require some Connecticut cities to create outdoor spaces specifically intended for using marijuana.
The law mandates that cities with a population greater than 50,000 “must designate a location in the municipality where public consumption is allowed,” according to an Office of Legislative Research analysis of the bill.
There are 19 cities in Connecticut that fit that population requirement.
It’s not so simple, though. That provision only applies to municipalities that choose to regulate the public use of cannabis.
So if, for example, Danbury chose to limit the public use of recreational marijuana, the city would be required by law to designate an outdoor area intended for people to smoke weed.
Danbury, among other cities, has decided to pause any development of recreational dispensaries, but that does not appear to be enough to trigger the mandated designation of outdoor space for marijuana.
As the OLR report suggests, only those municipalities that regulate the use of marijuana in public places would be required to create a specific area for weed consumption.
“Existing law allows municipalities to regulate activities deemed harmful to public health, including smoking, on municipally-owned property. The bill broadens this to include property that a municipality controls but does not own,” the OLR wrote. “It specifies that this regulatory authority applies to smoking tobacco or cannabis, including cannabis e-cigarette use and other types of cannabis use or consumption.”
Functionally, that may mean that cities larger than 50,000 may choose to allow people to smoke pot anywhere, or they can regulate public consumption and limit it to a specific area.
What those outdoor spaces should look like is not defined in the law.
Here are the 19 Connecticut municipalities that will have to either keep marijuana use unregulated or designate a place for pot-smoking:
– Bridgeport
– New Haven
– Stamford
– Hartford
– Waterbury
– Norwalk
– Danbury
– New Britain
– West Hartford
– Greenwich
– Fairfield
– Hamden
– Bristol
– Meriden
– Manchester
– West Haven
– Milford
– Stratford
– East Hartford