Missing word prompts complaint against Nevada marijuana panel
A Douglas County attorney claims the Nevada Tax Commission violated open meeting law because marijuana and other words were absent from a recent meeting agenda.
Jim Hartman, from Genoa, filed the complaint Wednesday with the Nevada attorney general’s office. The complaint references the May 8 meeting in which the tax commission adopted temporary regulations to allow recreational marijuana to be sold starting July 1 — about six months earlier than called for by Question 2.
Hartman claims the meeting’s agenda violated the law because it did not reference “marijuana,” “early start” or “Question 2.”
Hartman threatened to file the complaint at the meeting. But commissioners said they believed the agenda did not violate the law and chose to adopt the regulations.
The agenda referred to the state law that Question 2 eventually became once adopted into law on Jan. 1, Chapter 453D of the Nevada Revised Statutes.
In an email, Hartman said the agenda item was “very brief, opaque,” and an “obscure reference to the actual topic.”
If found in violation of the open meeting laws, the commission could be forced to re-hear the agenda item June 26. That could potentially delay the roll-out date of adult-use sales by nearly two months.
Contact Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4638. Follow @ColtonLochhead on Twitter.