A customer checks out at Nirvana Cannabis Dispensary in Menominee, Michigan on August 6, 2025. PC: Fox 11 Online
MENOMINEE, Mich. (WTAQ-WLUK) — Limiting marijuana dispensaries will once again be on the ballot this November for Menominee, Michigan voters.
This news comes after Judge Mary Barglind ruled Tuesday afternoon a vote held three weeks ago was unlawful.
On Aug. 5, 85% of Menominee voters said the number of marijuana dispensaries in the city should be capped at nine.
“The results of the election are not valid given the ruling I have just recited,” said Barglind.
Barglind ruled the vote must happen again Nov 4. That’s because she says Michigan marijuana law requires ballot initiatives to be held on the next regular election, which state law defines as an election when a person running for office is on the ballot. That wasn’t the case three weeks ago.
“I don’t have any objection to the vote,” said Bill Plemel, a member of Menominee’s city council. “It’s just that it be held in a legal time, according to state law.”
Plemel filed the lawsuit to delay the August vote until November.
Barglind says she allowed the election to happen during an Aug. 1 ruling because she feared more harm would be done in delaying it.
Barglind also decided to keep a temporary pause in place preventing any additional dispensary licenses to be issued ahead of November’s vote.
“There will be irreparable harm to defendants in not pausing the licenses at nine until the election occurs in November because the harm that would be done if more than nine licenses are granted and then the election passes the cap cannot adequately be fixed by money or retroactive remedy,” said Barglind. “How do you undo that?”
The city currently has issued nine dispensary licenses, but at least four other companies are in the process of trying to open shops, according to Mayor Casey Hoffman.
Hoffman has previously said the city would try to accommodate those companies and eventually get back down to nine dispensaries through attrition.
“The bottom line is the companies that have been investing into Menominee have the better legal argument,” Hoffman said. “If they were to sue the city of Menominee, the city of Menominee would lose.”
Menominee council member Donna Marineau was in the courtroom Tuesday but declined an on-camera interview request after the hearing.
She said Hoffman does not speak for the council and she believes most members do not want to issue additional licenses to companies already working to open in the city.
Marineau says the city will likely be sued either way, whether it’s the companies who’ve invested money to come to Menominee or the group that petitioned for the cap on dispensaries.
One thing is certain: no one expects a major change in the August results come November.
“It was started by voters,” said Menominee City Attorney Michael Celello. “It was circulated by voters. It was promoted by voters. Voters campaigned for it and it passed.”
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