It's three o'clock.

I'm gonna call the infrastructure and growth committee to order.

First on the agenda is the approval of the November 11th meeting minutes.

All right, all in favor.

All right, passes.

And we have two briefings scheduled.

The first one from Trinity Metro is going to be rescheduled to the April City Council work session.

And so next up is Stephanie Scott Sims for the Texas Compassionate Use Program and Zoning Regulations.

Good afternoon.

Stephanie Scott Sims, Assistant Director of Development Services.

Coming before you today to present about the Texas Compassionate Use Program and how we regulate those uses here at the City of Fort Worth.

You may know this as medical marijuana dispensaries.

So just to give you a little bit of background about the state law, the state allows participating physicians to prescribe low dose THC cannabis for qualifying medical conditions.

Those prescriptions are then entered on in an into an online registry, and that prescription is then filled by a DPS licensed dispensing organization.

Now there are currently three licensed dispensing organizations in Texas.

And under the law of HB 46, which was passed in 2025, the state is required to issue 12 more licenses for a total of 15.

Nine of those have been conditionally approved, and under those licenses, licensees may operate actually a variety of related uses, but one of those uses is a satellite location.

And under the state law, the what there is one satellite is allowed per licensee per public health region until that licensee has a satellite in each of the 11 public health regions.

And here's a map showing what those public health regions are and how it is they're divided within the state.

Currently, as I mentioned, there are three licensee or licensed organizations.

They're Fluent, Texas Original, and Good Blend.

Those are the names of the companies.

Two of those currently have pickup locations in Fort Worth.

Now those locations were grandfathered in as satellite locations.

They began their operations before the law was enacted in 2025.

A little bit about licensed dispensing organizations.

So the license allows dispensing, but it also allows the organization to operate other types of related facilities like cultivating, processing, and of course, dispensing.

And those organizations are subject to extensive regulation by the state.

Every time they dispense a prescription, they have to document that in a in a registry.

The satellite locations operate as pickup locations, and they're able to store those prescriptions overnight.

So they're only dispensing prescriptions at these satellite locations.

Under state law, they are these satellite locations may not be located within 1,000 feet of a school or daycare center.

So there's already a somewhat of a distance component requirement under the state law.

Staff presented IR 24-1867.

And staff, you may recall this is the same IR that spoke about proliferating uses, which I was up here a few months ago about.

And so staff stated at that time that these medical marijuana dispensaries would not fall within the definition of a retail smoke shop because they are they are different in the types of things that they sell.

Instead, these dispensaries would be treated more akin to like a pharmacy because there is a prescription requirement.

And that like pharmacies, these uses would be allowed in neighborhood or could be allowed in neighborhood commercial and more commercially intensive districts.

Staff gave council at that time a couple of options as to how you might want to regulate these or think about regulating these.

Again, you can one, you could regulate them akin to a pharmacy, like staff recommended, and what staff has been doing.

Alternative, council could amend the zoning ordinance to define the use or uses and determine what zoning districts that use would be permitted in by right or conditional use permit.

So staff also suggested that the manufacturer of medical marijuana, which is different from dispensary, um, could also be added as its own separate use and then limit it to industrial districts.

Staff did some research about how other cities regulate these uses.

And they do not regulate these as a distinct land use.

There's no distinct regular zoning regulations for these uses.

The only city that we did find that specifically regulated them was Tyler.

And so they actually adopted their ordinance before the satellite locations were allowed, and they treat all of these uses as industrial.

Staff recommends that we regulate satellite locations as a pharmacy.

So continue to regulate them how we've been regulating them.

And I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Councilman Blaylock.

Just a couple of quick questions for clarification.

How many satellite pharmacies may one distributor open in a geographic area?

In total, let me go back.

So right now, under the state law, the one licensee may operate a satellite co satellite location, just one per state health region or public health region.

So and then they can do that until the licensee has a satellite in each of the 11 public health regions.

So I guess it would depend somewhat about how many licensees that we have.

No, and I was gonna add on, and Trey Qualls with their city attorney's office who's done a lot of the research is here as well.

Um I did not mean to cut you off, but I do want to add when I read it, and Trey's gonna confirm this too.

I don't think there's a limit.