The Jacksonville Beach city council voted 4-3 to prohibit medical marijuana dispensaries within city limits Monday. Councilmen Jeanell Wilson, Bruce Thomason, Lee Buck and Mayor Charlie Latham voted to approve the ordinance, and Councilmen Phil Vogelsang, Chris Hoffman and Keith Doherty voted against.

This is the ordinance’s first reading, and will go through a second and final vote at the next city council meeting.

The prohibition comes just before the end of the city’s year-long moratorium on medical marijuana distribution. The city council approved the moratorium November 2016 to wait on further legislation from the state before making any decisions within Jacksonville Beach city limits.

Ordinance 2017-8098 is a result of state legislation, which gave cities the option to either allow or prohibit medical marijuana dispensaries within its city limits. City staff and Jacksonville Beach planning commission recommended the city prohibit dispensaries due to legal challenges to the current state legislation, as well as give the city more time to wait on further legislation from the state.

During the meeting, Doherty said the city shouldn’t prohibit dispensaries based on the 81 percent of Florida voters who approved medical marijuana in the state. He doesn’t see a boom of dispensaries within city limits because only a small portion of the city population would need prescribed medical marijuana.

Hoffman agreed, saying while the city should be conservative and cautious in land use and zoning of medical marijuana dispensaries, city staff is overestimating the volume of dispensaries that would be within city limits.

"I do think that we need to make it available to our citizens," said Hoffman. "We have a hospital here, we have an extensive medical community and we have people right in our community that can benefit immediately from this access."

Latham was the only councilman who spoke in support of the ordinance. He said while 81 percent of voters in the state approved of medical marijuana, Jacksonville Beach shouldn’t be roped into that percentage.

His main reason for approving the prohibition is the amount of heated calls he received after the Medical Marijuana Treatment Clinics of Florida opened on Third Street in South Jacksonville Beach. Operated by Compassionate Medical Associates, LLC, the clinic submitted the applications required to operate in Jacksonville Beach in late March.

He said his feedback from residents is to prohibit pharmacies from giving medical marijuana prescriptions until the state can get a better grip on how to legislate it.

"We’re a small community, we’re densely inhabited and there’s not going to be too many places where we can put a pharmacy that’s not going to have an impact on people who don’t really want it," said Latham.