WILMINGTON — There’s a second application for a medicinal marijuana growing facility in Wilmington.
The proposal submitted by Ancient Roots LLC, headed by David Haley of Lebanon, Ohio, is for a smaller, Level 2-size operation. Haley was present for a City of Wilmington Planning Commission meeting on Tuesday.
The site he is eyeing is about eight acres off U.S. 68 South within the city limits. The location offers access to the Interstate highway system which is key, he said, as cultivators can sell directly to processors or dispensaries and thus take part in making deliveries to those businesses.
Haley’s work background has focused, he said, on “caring for patients in one capacity or another.” He started his career as an athletic trainer and, in fact, did a year with the Cincinnati Bengals when they held their summer training camp at Wilmington College.
He gravitated to medical device sales, and the past five years has owned a medical device distributorship, selling surgical implants.
“This level [Level 2 operation] really gives a small business owner such as myself an opportunity to start a business at the ground level,” Haley said after the planning commission meeting at city hall.
“I think we put in a very strong application for the state, and we’re hoping we are one of the 12 ultimately awarded a Level 2 license,” added Haley.
The Ancient Roots LLC proposal is to cultivate 13 different strains of marijuana in treating the 23 separate diagnoses the state has approved for medicinal marijuana prescriptions.
“Our goal is to have five harvests [per year], tricking the plants into thinking it’s fall every couple months,” Haley said.
A Level 2 growing facility is limited to 3,000 square feet the first year of operation, and can expand to 6,000 square feet the second year if it’s in good standing with authorities, and up to 9,000 square feet the third year.
Haley expects to hear word on his application by September.
As previously reported, CannAscend Ohio LLC hopes to build a medicinal marijuana growing facility on Davids Drive in Wilmington. It seeks a Level 1 license which permits operating a facility with up to 25,000 square feet of growing space.
The State of Ohio has not set geographic limits on where the growing facilities can be sited, said Haley, so both Wilmington proposals could be approved.
The Ancient Roots project, if it becomes a reality, would initially employ about seven or eight people, Haley said.
He thinks the legal availability of medicinal marijuana can curb the number of opioid-based overdose deaths. Fewer people will get addicted to prescription opioid-based painkillers in the first place if they are prescribed medicinal marijuana instead, he said.
Haley hopes medicinal marijuana would “steer some of them away” from going down a path that begins with prescription opioid-based painkillers and can then lead to heroin and an overdose.
His appointment with the planning commission pertained to his request for a commercial greenhouse on land zoned industrial. The planning commission voted 5-1 to recommend Haley’s request for a conditional-use variance to the Board of Zoning Appeals, where the next step in the local process occurs.
The commission member who voted “no“ was Junior King who mentioned the area’s drug problem, and wondered why neither the City of Wilmington nor Clinton County had enacted a moratorium against marijuana growing projects.
He was told a city council committee discussed the question at length and decided not to draft a moratorium measure.
Responding to King’s concerns, Wilmington Mayor John Stanforth said at the planning commission meeting, “The state law allows it, and we saw no reason to go against what state law is.”
Reach Gary Huffenberger at 937-556-5768.
