Ryan Poe

The Commercial Appeal

The ordinance lets officers issue citations for possession of a half-ounce or less of marijuana punishable by a fine of $50 or community service.

Police can still charge offenders under state criminal law, a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.

Officers won't be allowed to issue citations until City Court and police work out procedures.

The Memphis City Council narrowly approved an ordinance Tuesday giving police officers the option of decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana despite lingering questions about implementation.

The ordinance -- approved in a 7-6 vote in an hour-long public hearing -- lets officers issue citations for possession of a half-ounce or less of marijuana punishable by a fine of $50 or community service. Violators could opt for 10 hours of community service on the first offense, with 10 additional hours per offense up to 40 hours.

Police can still charge offenders under state criminal law, a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.

Police Director Michael Rallings said didn't oppose the ordinance, despite past criticism. But he said he had concerns, top of which was that a half-ounce was more than "casual possession" and that he didn't know if City Court could handle the extra caseload.

Officers won't be allowed to issue citations until City Court gives him the go-ahead, Rallings said.

Chief Operations Officer Doug McGowen said conversations about what City Court needs to do to comply with the ordinance will happen immediately.

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, who had remained neutral in the debate, said in a statement after the vote that marijuana possession is still illegal, and police would continue to exercise discretion in making arrests.

“I support the intent of this ordinance -- to less severely punish non-violent offenders," he said. "The City Council’s debate, though, did not answer several important questions."

The vote followed weeks of debate, and approval last month of a similar ordinance in Nashville.

Voting for the ordinance were sponsor Berlin Boyd, Edmund Ford Jr., Reid Hedgepeth, Martavius Jones, Patrice Robinson, Philip Spinosa Jr. and Jamita Swearengen. Voting against were Joe Brown, Frank Colvett Jr., Janis Fullilove, Worth Morgan, Bill Morrison and chairman Kemp Conrad.

Rep. G.A. Hardaway, D-Memphis, was present for the vote, and said afterward it was a historic move that would push more communities around the state to consider criminal justice reform.

"It's a different world," he said.

Hardaway said he expects opponents of marijuana decriminalization to try to pass bills punishing Memphis and Nashville next legislative session. A legislator recently threatened to try and pull transportation funding to the cities, which are the only ones in the state so far to decriminalize marijuana.

But, Hardaway added, the opposition becomes less intense as more cities and rural areas see firsthand how a criminal record for a marijuana-related mistake can derail lives and careers.

He said he expects the state's other large metros -- along with the suburbs and rural areas -- to consider similar ordinances next year.

Council member Berlin Boyd, who sponsored the ordinance with Martavius Jones, acknowledged the ordinance would be a work in progress, but said he hopes it will give some people a "second chance."

Boyd passed around an information sheet to his colleagues showing 3,800 people were arrested in Shelby County in 2015 for possession of less than one-half ounce of marijuana and/or paraphernalia, and 90 percent were black.

Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich recently said her office doesn't prosecute all marijuana-only arrests, only pursuing charges in about 300 of those cases in 2015.

Several council members voiced opposition to what they described as a half-baked ordinance that wouldn't save police nearly as much time or money as its supporters claimed.

But perhaps the most vehement opposition came from member Janis Fullilove, who criticized the ordinance at length for shifting responsibility from the individual.

At one point, she said drew an analogy between people who smoke marijuana to people drunk on alcohol, saying people shouldn't drive drunk if they don't want a criminal record.

"I should know firsthand," added Fullilove, who has been arrested twice for drunk driving in the past.

But before the vote, member Patrice Robinson said the disparity in arrests, and the cost for relatively minor non-violent offenses, was too high a price to continue to pay.

"Let's try something new," she said.