Piedmont, AL – Piedmont City Council Says No to CBD Retailers in the City Limits. – The Piedmont City council met Tuesday night to discuss several issues facing the city. One issue on the agenda was to decide whether to allow a CBD retailer to open and sell CBD products within the city limits.
Police Chief Nathan Johnson, who originally brought the issue to the council’s attention, was asked by the council to give them more information. Chief Johnson pointed out that the city currently had no ordinance either allowing Retail CBD sales or not and on the recommendation of the ABC board the council needed decide which course of action to take. Johnson went on to say if the council voted to banned CBD sales then a letter would be prepared and taken to businesses who may currently carry those products informing them they had a certain amount of time to remove those products from their store.
If those products are not removed by the deadline then there would be repercussions to the business. Council member Feazell asked if this would affect the drugstores that sold therapeutic crème which contained CBD. Chief Johnson informed him based on the model they were proposing to use it would not. Those products could still be purchased from the drug store and some may require a prescription.
Council member Feazell commented that he had reviewed the proposal and was in favor of it. He made the motion to banned CBD products sold by retailers. The motion was second by council member Richard Williams. A Roll call vote was taken council members Lawrence, Williams, Feazell, Ivey, and Kiser all voted no to allowing retail sales of CDB products. Council members Pope and South were not in attendance.
The Piedmont City Council met Tuesday March 18th the planning session took place at 5:30 PM with the regular meeting scheduled to start at 6PM. Mayor Bill Baker stated there were regular expenses amounting to $243,761.22 and two weeks of payroll amounting in $155,260.44. The total expenses were $399,021.66 a motion was made, seconded and passed to pay the bills.
Corey Horton, manager of Piedmont Power and Light, informed the council of the upcoming rate increase that will be affecting the April bill for their customers. Police Chief Nathan Johnson then gave the police report. There have been a total of 35 arrests on 53 misdemeanor charges along with 8 felony charges. The department also reported 119 traffic stops and 77 incident reports.
Fire Chief Todd Kirkland presented the fire report. The fire department answered 13 fire calls, 32 calls for rescue & emergency medical service incident, 4 calls for hazardous conditions and calls for other non-emergency situations.
The next item on the agenda was visitor comments the council heard from Ms. Linda Bell discussing the utility rate increase. The council, Mayor and City Clerk gave their reports and motion was made, second, and passed for the meeting to adjourn.
The city of Piedmont has to decide if it will or will not allow a “brown bag” policy to continue within the city limits. If “brown bagging” is allowed it would mean a customer could bring their own adult beverages to the restaurant, which doesn’t serve alcohol, to consume while having a meal.
Kevin Cunningham, one of the owners of Pinhoti Pizza Company, spoke in favor of continuing to allow customers to be able to bring their own adult beverages to a restaurant that doesn’t serve them already. Mr. Cunningham made reference to other cities that allow area restaurants to brown bag and how much success they are having with no issue.
There was much discussion on the impact of allowing brown bagging to continue. Questions of liability were raised and discussed. Council member Terry Kiser made a motion that the issue be tabled for now until more information was available and more discussion could take place.
Mark McGriff
(Information Provided by WEIS RADIO)
