(CBS DETROIT) – Efforts are underway to stop the flood of cannabis billboards in Detroit.
CBS News Detroit has learned that City Councilwoman Angela Whitfield Calloway is taking legal action to prevent new signs from appearing downtown.
“It’s taking over our city,” Calloway said at a meeting last month. “You can’t drive down the street or the highway without seeing this one cannabis business.”
Calloway’s comments followed 9-year-old Kaydyn’s public comments to the council about the billboards he sees when he comes to visit his grandmother in Detroit.
“Every time I come I see that sign and I worry that kids will get interested because it says it’s free,” Kaydyn said.
These comments, and the distaste that some pharmacies have for the way they operate, are echoed by a local pharmacy owner.
“When you see billboards that say ‘free weed’ or ‘get high,’ it hurts us,” Jerry Millen told CBS News Detroit on Thursday.
Millen, owner of The Greenhouse in Walled Lake, understands the need for billboards. However, he takes issue with some business owners who he says make all cannabis business people “look like a bunch of jokers.”
Millen said that placing one billboard in Metro Detroit costs more than $6,000 a month, a staggering amount that would make it impossible for anyone to do so, he said.
“I want people to come to The Greenhouse and see if we can help them get some relief,” Millen told CBS Detroit. “Everything we’re presenting is different. It’s about community engagement and taking the cannabis business seriously. The jokers who don’t take it seriously are hurting us.”
