An RV park that caters to families and children is opposed to a proposed marijuana production facility opening a stone’s throw away. “Our membership and guests to not want their children exposed to marijuana without parental supervision and consent,” Lorri Aldridge, an owner at Sundance Meadows Ranch, told Deschutes County Commissioners Wednesday morning. “The location of the proposed marijuana grow is a very short distance due south of a key youth recreational facilities at Sundance Meadows Ranch.”
The RV resort is just off Arnold Market Road in SE Bend. Members have access to many amenities, including an indoor pool that’s popular among families with children at the ranch.
It’s only a few hundred feet and a barbed-wire fence away from the proposed production facility.
“The big issue right now is that there’s a pool next door and they’re trying to claim it as a youth activity center, and it’s kind of vague in the legislature so…I don’t know we’re just kind of trying to decide whether it is or is not a youth activity center,” said Tommy Nehmzow, the applicant for the production facility.
It’s being argued that Nehmzow’s facility would not meet separation distance requirements.
Sundance Meadows calls the area a youth activity center because of the large number of kids who use the pool.
But both sides are questioning the actual definition of a “youth activity center.”
“Without a definition, people who are wanting to apply to get approved for marijuana production have no way of knowing what a youth activity center is,” said Michael Hughes, an attorney for the proposed facility.
Hughes says no legal decisions will be made until early 2020.