JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Big-city folks often travel to nearby tourist towns for summer escapes. San Francisco has Napa Valley. New Yorkers may go upstate. Chicagoans often head to nearby New Buffalo, Michigan, for its rolling hills, sandy beaches and extensive wine offerings. Now, add cheaper marijuana to the list, earning New Buffalo some new nicknames, including Weed City USA. From member station WBEZ, reporter Michael Puente explains.
MICHAEL PUENTE, BYLINE: Downtown New Buffalo has a New England feel. With its white boardwalk, picturesque views of Lake Michigan, this quiet resort town draws vacationers in for great restaurants, brewpubs and wineries. But in the larger area known as New Buffalo Township, something else draws thousands every weekend.
RAYMOND BAKER: The mecca of dispensaries here (laughter). Every time I come back, there's a new one, it seems like. It's like another one that's popped up.
PUENTE: Raymond Baker (ph) drives about an hour to come here to buy marijuana because it's illegal in his home state of Indiana. His wife, Monique (ph), says she spends about 200 bucks per visit, which is much cheaper than if they travel to Chicago, which is closer but where the cost of marijuana is higher.
MONIQUE BAKER: That same amount probably only going to get you a ounce less.
PUENTE: Michigan's marijuana industry has blossomed to become one of the largest markets in the country.
BILL KNUDSON: Total sales are roughly in the range of $3 billion a year.
PUENTE: Bill Knudson is an agricultural economist at Michigan State University.
KNUDSON: It's a reasonably big industry and it certainly has been a boon to some local units of government.
PUENTE: Nowhere has that boon been bigger than in the small community of New Buffalo Township, with a population of 2,500.
KNUDSON: Smaller towns along the Indiana-Michigan border have a disproportionately large number of dispensaries there. We kind of expected that. I think we're surprised how big it is.
PUENTE: Just last year, there were only six dispensaries in the entire township. Today, township officials say there are 26, with most bunched up together off a busy expressway just over the state line from Indiana. A recent report in Crain's Detroit Business valued the marijuana market in this region at a half a billion in sales. That's even bigger than the much larger Detroit metro area. There are so many dispensaries in New Buffalo it's being called something else.
VANCE PRICE: That nickname, New Puffalo, marijuana capital - I think that's not what we want to be known for.
PUENTE: Vance Price is the mayor of the city of New Buffalo, one of three communities within the township. The city voted down having marijuana dispensaries, so it doesn't get a cut of the money generated from dispensaries that are located within the township but outside the city limits. Even so, Price admits there's been some positives from the boon - more visitors to the city's wineries, brewpubs and restaurants. But he says traffic jams on weekends are causing public safety concerns and disrupting the area's small-town feel.
PRICE: I will get emails sometimes, why do you allow so many in? And it's, well, we didn't, you know, allow this many in in the township. I just think what happened is they didn't expect there to be that many.
PUENTE: That part is true, says Michelle Heit, supervisor for New Buffalo Township.
MICHELLE HEIT: There's a lot. There's a lot right now. More than we probably anticipated. The areas were large enough that somehow they figured out a way to cram as many as they possibly could, and we didn't anticipate that.
PUENTE: Heit says the township wanted to clear away old structures by allowing in new developments. It receives $58,000 annually from each dispensary. It's expected the revenue generated could amount to $1.5 million next year - enough to fix roads and buy a new fire truck. And if that New Puffalo nickname causes us any concern, Heit just says...
HEIT: I mean, I guess anybody can call a community whatever they want to call it. It certainly hasn't stopped anybody from coming here. I think this is probably the busiest summer ever. We also have a casino. You know, this area has a lot to offer.
PUENTE: And a lot more marijuana dispensaries for the township are in the works.
For NPR News, I'm Michael Puente in New Buffalo, Michigan.
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