Hecker will not have any cannabis businesses, at least for the time being. 

The Hecker Village Board voted last Tuesday night at its regular meeting to prohibit all types of marijuana businesses within the village. 

“With it being new, I think we thought it was the right decision, and it can always be changed later,” Hecker Mayor Charlie Kujawski said.

The vote on the matter was 4-2, Kujawski said. 

The village did not hold any public meetings on the matter, and no residents spoke at last week’s village board meeting. 

Hecker joins Waterloo as the two Monroe County towns that have already completely prohibited  recreational cannabis businesses. 

Columbia, however, is drafting language in its zoning code to permit a potential dispensary. For more on that, see this week’s front page.

Randolph County says no to cannabis

According to the North County News, the Randolph County Board on Friday unanimously approved an ordinance prohibiting cannabis business establishments in the unincorporated parts of the county.

The ordinance covers all adult-use cannabis business establishments, craft growers, cultivation centers, dispensing organizations, infuser organization or infuser, processing organization or processor, and transporting organization or transporter. 

In the ordinance, it noted that operation of any cannabis business establishment in the county could be declared a public nuisance.

“I care about our children,” Randolph County Board Chairman Marc Kiehna said, expressing his concerns about the influence that retail cannabis could have on local youth. “Yes they can go elsewhere and bring it back, but they won’t be purchasing it here like (tobacco) cigarettes.”

Kiehna noted that the county commissioners had asked for feedback from residents on the matter.  He noted that much of it was against the sale of cannabis in his county. 

Kiehna felt this “adds to the chorus of people not wanting it sold here.”