Osage Beach Takes First Step At Separating Medical & Recreational Marijuana Businesses

The City of Osage Beach takes the first step in officially separating businesses that will peddle either medical or adult-use recreational marijuana…but not both.

The board of aldermen, this week, approved the first reading of a measure amending zoning ordinances to deal with the two different types of dispensaries.

“There will be locations within cities, urban areas where there’s more people, where you will have specific medical marijuana that may not have the recreational side. And then, obviously, there will probably be more, that will be the straight recreational side because they won’t want to put up with the security aspects of the medical side of marijuana” says Planner Cary Patterson, who also reminded the board that the topic was first brought up in 2019 when the city approved various ordinances to deal with medical marijuana facilities.

Ultimate approval of rezoning to accommodate the dispensaries that only focus on “medical versus recreational” would fall in line with similar regulations adopted by the state to keep the two different types of operations separate.