MINNEAPOLIS — The Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board (MPRB) is looking for public input on two draft policies concerning cannabis use and THC products inside the park system.
The first policy is an update to the tobacco policy, which bans tobacco products of any kind on park land or facilities. This potential change would add smoking or vaping cannabis or THC products to that policy, banning it from park land and facilities.
"The tobacco portion of the policy does go more deeply into other forms of tobacco, but the cannabis portion just focuses on smoking and vaping," Jennifer Ringold, the deputy superintendent for the MPRB, said.
The second proposed policy would create protocol for how vendors or permit holders could sell THC products within the park system. Beverages and edibles would be capped at a potency of 5 milligrams of THC per serving.
You can read both policies by clicking here. Public comment on both started this past Monday, and will last into January.
"We're just trying to move through with where the commissioners views are of what they want to see happen within the Minneapolis Parks," Ringold said.
Ringold says this wouldn't add any sort of penalties if the cannabis element is added to the tobacco policy.
"I think it's fair to say the commissioners are choosing a policy approach which doesn't establish any type of penalty or any type of violation with it," she said. "It does rely on, you know, park staff, community members, kind of self monitoring and doing the work that would would be done to discourage smoking or vaping within public spaces in the same way we currently do around tobacco, smoking and vaping in public spaces on the THC edibles and beverages side."
With public comment still underway, we asked dozens of people Saturday their thoughts on the potential changes.
"When I come out to the park, I want it to be clean," Sidney Grimmett said. "I want it to smell like nature."
"I prefer none of it in the park," Elizabeth Unger said.
Others say they don't see what the issue is.
"It feels vindictive to me to make a big deal about the occasional person that's going to be walking around making a, puffing away on it," Val Baertlein said.
Ringold says as of Friday, they've had over a thousand people comment on the two policies.
Public comment will run through January, and in February, MPRB will look at those comments and update policies. In March, a public hearing will be held on the two, and commissioners will decide on the two that same month.