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Regular City Council Meeting Monday,April 22,2024 Page 7 Councilmember Schroeder asked Ms. Skahen to address cannabis, stating she knows there are still a lot of loose ends of what is coming from the State. She asked if cannabis would be lumped in with all of the other smoking. Ms. Skahen explained there are a lot of cities that want to be proactive about it and there is a lot of discussion happening right now at the legislature. As she is aware, currently as the law stands, smoking of cannabis is allowed in multi-unit housing until March 1, 2025. After March 1, 2025, as the law is written, the smoking of cannabis will no longer be allowed in multi-unit housing per State law. There are also some points that are unclear within the law. There is some grey area there that she thought was still being worked out at the State Legislature. In conversations with other cities and public health, most are considering lumping that in as a proactive measure because there is so much grey area and she is not sure whether or not that will be included at the State level going forward. Councilmember Schroeder wondered what the rights of the smokers are. She asked,when stating that low-income people are affected the most, did Ms. Engman know what percentage of low-income people are smokers. She wanted to make sure there is a balance of people's rights. Ms. Skahen explained under the eyes of the law there are no legal protections for active smoking. Unlike freedom of speech, smoking has never been deemed a protected category under the eyes of the law.They recognize that nicotine addiction is a very significant addiction. The tobacco industry has preyed on different communities for decades so there are a lot of layers to this that they do not take lightly when talking about smoking policies. She noted that smoke free housing is not smoker free housing so people who are smokers can absolutely live in smoke free housing. Councilmember Strahan asked what the legality would be of decreasing the multi- family licensing fee for a smoke free policy. City Attorney Tierney advised that fees are based on costs, so the license fee needs to reflect the cost of providing that service. The City would need to demonstrate that a building that was not smoke free is a higher cost to the City than a building that is smoke free in order to justify that disparity. Ms. Tierney stated license fees are not a place to achieve policy objectives. Mayor Roe asked if the City could consider a building if it has a smoke free policy and they do not enforce it with evidence of non-enforcement — if that would be something that could be added as a consideration for the City's looking at their license and whether or not to renew or whether or not to impose some sort of penalty associated with that license.