New Business Withdraws Rezone Request

WATONGA – A longawaited meeting of the Watonga Planning and Zoning Committee had an unexpected ending Monday when the business involved formally withdrew its rezoning request, ending the meeting before the committee had to vote on it.

A couple dozen Watonga officials and residents were on hand for the meeting about Exalted Connoisseurs, a medical marijuana business that wants to open inside the former Dollar General at 106 W. A St. The company was requesting that the building be rezoned from “commercial” to “industrial” use so it could run a research laboratory on the site.

The request drew widespread pushback from surrounding business owners and community members. Forty of them filed a protest against the rezone, well over half of the constituents who received notice about the request, and 38 of those objections were upheld as legally valid after the city’s review.

Several Watonga residents at the meeting voiced questions and objections to the possibility. That’s when Exalted Connoisseurs representatives announced they were withdrawing the request.

They don’t need it, Robert Burton explained.

“I don’t know where the disconnect happened,” Burton said, “but after the (newspaper) article (from May 18), after some discussions with my business partner, I realized – ‘Wait. What is this rezoning request? Why do you want to be industrial? We’re not doing industrial here.’”

Dr. Thomas Johnson III, the chemist behind Exalted Connoisseurs, had been in discussions with City of Watonga code enforcement about how to zone the business. That process led Johnson to believe he needed industrial zoning, but Burton and Johnson argued at the meeting that their plans are specifically permitted in commercial settings.

“You have, in the commercial provisions of your zoning code, specific sections … (permitting) exactly what his intentions are here, and has always been from day one – which is to build in this city a commercial, not industrial, but a research facility,” Burton said.

Johnson showed attendees a video rendering of his plans for the site. Flying through the building, the video depicts a spacious front lobby, a kitchen space, a conference room, and rows of what appear to be hydroponic cannabis plants in the street-facing front section of the building. Flying through a set of double doors, the video reveals a laboratory space and storage areas.

The businessmen said they get the marijuana from a commercial grow in the Oklahoma panhandle and don’t need one here in Watonga.

Questions and concerns

Four Watonga residents spoke against the rezone request before it was withdrawn. Local attorney Daniel Webber said the city has done too much “spot zoning” and shouldn’t make exceptions to its zoning laws “unless there is an absolutely overwhelming reason to do so."

“You have a zoning law, a zoning ordinance, for a reason,” Webber said.

Others expressed concern about the business itself, raising questions about what another marijuana business would mean for its neighbors. Larry Kerr, speaking on behalf of the Watonga Senior Citizens Center – which is directly north of the proposed Exalted Connoisseurs – wondered what kind of smells, waste, and parking issues the site would produce.

"Our main concern is parking, noise, odors, disposable waste products. What is going to happen to this building?" he said.

"Air quality is the biggest deal," said Cheryl House, another local who spoke against the project, citing concerns of "respiratory issues" near grow facilities.

Johnson, while withdrawing his rezone request, sought to assuage concerns like these. "There's nothing industrial about it," Johnson said.

He said the facility won't produce much waste at all, won't smell, and would have about a dozen total employees – too few to complicate downtown parking, he said. He further explained his process for producing medical cannabis products, saying that he doesn't use the drug recreationally and doesn't create products with that intent.

"What I do is, I take the molecular structure of the plant apart piece by piece," Johnson said. "If you think about a geneticist, it's essentially what I'm doing. I take pieces of the plant, I find out what can cure somebody, what cannot cure somebody, and I work from the bottom up. That is very different from just getting somebody high. That's not what this is about."

He reiterated big plans for growing and expanding past the 106 W. A St. location, branching into other businesses, and said he may eventually open an industrial facility in town – in a properly zoned area.

"We have earmarked $30 million to come to this community and do something big," Johnson told the crowd. "I want to finish out what my grandmother gave me as a vision."

Johnson said his grandmother grew up in Watonga, which is why he wanted to locate his next business here. "That's my intent and what I plan to do. Industrial use, it is not."

Burton and Johnson lingered after the meeting was adjourned, talking to a few locals with questions about the project.

The Watonga Republican has reached out to City of Watonga leaders, asking whether or not the town agrees with Exalted Connoisseurs' assertion that it doesn't need industrial zoning to proceed.