MITCHELL — A Sioux Falls medical marijuana entrepreneur received the green light to open a dispensary on Mitchell’s Main Street despite some downtown property owners opposed to the business location.
While the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission was also against the plan, the Mitchell City Council ultimately approved a conditional use permit on June 19 that allows the Flower Shop dispensary to operate inside the 100 N. Main St. building.
Council member Susan Tjarks said the Main Street location wasn’t ideal, but she explained why she voted in favor of the conditional use permit.
“Unfortunately, there were certain parameters we decided we needed to abide by for every applicant who applied for a conditional use permit for medical marijuana. Whatever my personal opinions, in South Dakota it’s the law that this (medical marijuana) is legal,” Tjarks said prior to approving the permit at the June 19 council meeting. “This business fits their criteria of the ordinance we have in place. We don’t really have any grounds to deny it.”
The Planning and Zoning Commission’s 3-2 vote to deny the permit served as a recommendation for the council to consider when the eight-person governing body decided the fate of the permit at its mid-June meeting. The recommendation to deny was overwhelmingly rejected by the council’s unanimous approval of the conditional use permit. Planning and Zoning Commission members Kevin Genzlinger, Larry Jirsa and Jay Larson denied the permit, while Jon Osterloo and Jacob Sonne approved it. There was no explanation offered during the meeting as to why the commission members who voted against sided that way.
Among some of the downtown property owners who were opposed to the plan was Don Dahl, a California native who recently moved to Mitchell to lead a handful of Main Street building restoration projects. Dahl said a dispensary in the heart of downtown paints the “wrong image” for a “home town Main Street.”
“Main Street is Mitchell’s front door porch. I live on Main Street, and I’m asking you: Please don’t bring this trash out on the front porch,” Dahl said. “We’re asking you to maintain higher standards, greater expectations for Mitchell’s Main Street.”
At the early June Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, Dahl said the odor he’s experienced from dispensaries while residing in California was strong and disruptive to surrounding businesses and properties.
According to City Planner Mark Jenniges, a total of four letters from nearby property owners were submitted to the council, which all recommended against the Main Street dispensary location.
The city’s cannabis zoning codes that were adopted by the council roughly two years didn’t consider distance between dispensaries and parks, but the codes did include setback distances from schools and religious institutions. In some of the letters submitted to the city recommending denial of the permit, the close proximity of the Veteran’s Memorial Park — which sits directly across the street from the dispensary building — was one reason they stood against the location.
Looking back on the adoption of the zoning codes, Tjarks said including separation distances between cannabis businesses and city parks was one area that got overlooked. However, she noted the council was up against challenges in implementing zoning codes within a short time frame for an industry that was completely new to South Dakota after voters approved legalizing medical marijuana in 2020.
“It was kind of like the blind leading the blind,” Tjarks said of the council attempting to adopt ordinances for the medical marijuana industry.
Peter Dikun, owner of the Flower Shop in Sioux Falls, is the applicant seeking to turn the Main Street property into a dispensary. Dikun highlighted the plans to renovate the building that previously housed a gift shop and boutique.
“We’re just looking to move into this community and run a state-compliance regulated dispensary. We’re looking to update the building. It’s an old building and needs work. We’re going to replace the glass and some of the siding,” Dikun said. “We’re willing to spend the money and put in the work.”
In response to concerns of odor emitting from the dispensary, Dikun said there’s “really no odor in dispensaries.”
“You’re going to have odor in cultivation when you’re growing stuff. You’re going to have some smell when you come inside, but not really on the outside,” Dikun said, noting the company uses a filtration system to mitigate odor inside dispensaries.
Dikun emphasized the Mitchell Department of Public Safety building which serves as the station for the city’s police officers and firefighters is within a block from the Main Street dispensary.
“Anything about safety concerns, you can’t get any closer than that,” Dikun said of the close proximity to the police and fire station.
The council also approved Dikun’s application to secure the city’s last remaining dispensary license during the June 20 meeting. The city allows a maximum of five dispensary licenses, which were all accounted for until one of the license holders, BesaMe Wellness, agreed to transfer its license to Dikun. BesaMe Wellness had plans to open a dispensary and cultivation facility at the former Runnings building along South Burr Street.
Sam Fosness joined the Mitchell Republic in May 2018. He was raised in Mitchell, S.D., and graduated from Mitchell High School. He continued his education at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, where he graduated in 2020 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a minor in English. During his time in college, Fosness worked as a news and sports reporter for The Volante newspaper.
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