If you want to grow or dispense medical marijuana in Shelton, you'll have to wait nine months.
The city set a nine-month moratorium starting Sept. 4 and ending June 1, 2014. It will not accept or review any applications for medical marijuana businesses until it develops its own regulations.
There is also an option to extend the moratorium.
Zoning Administrator Rick Schultz said some communities have drafted their own regulations before the state approves its regulations. The Secretary of State is supposed to receive a copy of recently approved state regulations next week, Schultz said.
"It was determined a moratorium would be the way to go for this particular situation," he said. "This is a zoning tool."
He stressed it was not designed to block marijuana businesses, just to give time for the Planning and Zoning Commission to craft its own regulations.
That could take six to nine months, said Planning and Zoning Commission member Anthony Panico.
One certain rule will be that any grower would have to work in a secure facility.
One speaker, Timothy Clancy of Stratford, said medical marijuana has a unnecessary stigma attached.
"I'm a cannabis patient and I might not be alive in nine months," he said. "This is really a medicine and I hope people can get around the stigma."
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