Cincinnati was home to Stan Aronoff, and he left it a much better place

Cincinnati lost so much in January. Many in our city do not realize how much we now enjoy was engendered by Ohio Senator Stan Aronoff. I’ve been waiting to write this column until after his celebration of life on June 22.

As a longtime friend, I was privileged to be among Neil Bortz, Steve Loftin, Jon Husted, Diane Martin, Jeff Ruby, Steve Hunt, Jeff DeLeone and Toria (granddaughter) and Brian Schottenstein as speakers on June 22. This is what I said then.

Sen. Stan Aronoff did more for Cincinnati than most civic leaders ever have. There are many reasons for this, but I will mention a few.

He was brilliant. He studied problems and solutions before he acted. Many legislators simply talked about what they thought they wanted without studying the possibilities or the obstacles. Stan was one of the exceptions. When he advocated for something, he had the facts in hand, and he had figured out how to clear the obstacles.

He worked hard and he understood Ohio. Being a state senator from Cincinnati and president of the Ohio Senate meant he had to travel from one end of the state to the other frequently.

Some of that driving was before interstate highways. Much was before car phones. Can you imagine?

I once calculated that Stan had traveled more miles back and forth from Cincinnati to Columbus than Neil Armstrong had to the Moon. Anyone who ever rode with Stan knew he probably traveled faster.

Stan loved Cincinnati and its people. He was born here and spent his life here.  His family were immigrants − refugees. But Cincinnati was home to Stan, and he left it a much better place.

After working his way up to the Ohio Statehouse, Stan secured the rightful share of state support that Cincinnati had long been denied.

The icons of our built environment − the University of Cincinnati campus with its signature-architect structures, the renovation of Cincinnati Union Terminal as the nationally acclaimed Museum Center (my wife, Sue Ann, was instrumental) and the Aronoff Center for the Arts, which truly revived Downtown − would not exist except for Stan Aronoff. The Ohio Arts Council, which supports countless large and small arts institutions, would not exist without Stanley J. Aronoff.

He was the rare visionary who also had the ability and determination to accomplish great things.

He was a Republican who worked with Democrats to get things done. The best government we had in Ohio while I’ve been alive was when Stan Aronoff was Senate President and Vern Riffe was House Speaker: one Republican and one Democrat; one urban and one rural.

Nothing could pass unless Stan and Vern agreed. This meant compromise was necessary to round off the edges and keep extremists of either party in check, and it worked well. Back then, the legislature focused on school funding, criminal justice, and public health. While they surely couldn’t solve everything, they made an effort to try, rather than an effort to “own” the other side.

In Stan’s day, the extremely goofy legislation we see now with Ohio’s one-party government would never have even been considered.

The recent proposals to ban drag shows and prosecute school librarians would have been laughed out of a legislature populated by adults. 

Sue Ann and I were privileged to know Stan and to have played a small part in this journey.

One day, we hope to see his equal again.

Cincinnati native Mark Painter served for 30 years as an Ohio judge. After serving 13 years on the Hamilton County Municipal Court, Painter was elected to the Ohio Court of Appeals in 1994. He served on Ohio’s Court of Appeals until 2009, when he was elected by the UN General Assembly to serve as the first American on the UN Appeals Tribunal. He is the author of six books and hundreds of nationally published opinions.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — More than 100 dispensaries in Ohio are on their way to selling recreational marijuana. This comes after sales were anticipated to start in June.

The Division of Cannabis Control has given provisional licenses to 110 dispensaries so they can sell both medically and recreationally once they receive final approval.

Of the 110, Northeast Ohio has 36. Southwest Ohio has 29, and Central Ohio has 18. Franklin County has the most with 12, Cuyahoga with 11 and Hamilton with nine.

Click here to learn which facilities have a provisional license.

License applications must be approved or denied by Sept. 7, but the state and policymakers have continued to say that applications could be granted and recreational sales could happen by mid-June.

The passage of Issue 2 allowed adults 21 years of age and older to smoke, vape and ingest weed. Individual Ohioans are able to grow up to six plants with up to 12 per household. Click here to learn more about what the law entails.

High hopes for marijuana to hit store shelves sooner this summer

High hopes for marijuana to hit store shelves sooner this summer

Ohio Cannabis Coalition’s Tom Haren is staying positive despite the delayed start date.

“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Haren said. “There is a lot of work that needed to get done.”

Consumers haven’t been able to buy weed legally because there is a process that takes place between getting a provisional license and getting a license with a certificate of operation.

The state has a list of requirements that shops need to meet, such as keeping visitor logs, having curbside and drive-through pickup and utilizing surveillance systems. Dispensaries will also have to demonstrate they can keep inventory aside to make sure medical patients continue having preferred access. Sellers will also have to do a test sale to a medical patient and a recreational consumer, among dozens of other tasks and evaluations.

“We’ve been going on a hiring blitz, of course, making sure that we’re staffed up,” Brandon Nemec with Verilife said.

But Gov. Mike DeWine wants more regulations.

“We have a problem of walking down the street with your five-year-old and there is marijuana smoke,” DeWine said in late June.

He has been asking for lawmakers to deal with his safety concerns for months.

The Senate has passed and proposed various changes to the law — like a restriction or ban on public smoking. However, it would limit home grow, reduce THC levels and ban the vast majority of vapes — among dozens of other restrictions and changes to what the voters chose.

House Speaker Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) has been blocking it, and dispensaries support him.

“Honoring the will of the voters is very important,” Stephens said in late June. “That part has been done — this was passed in November and it’s still the law of the land.”

The lawmakers in both chambers allegedly agree that they want to put more stringent guidelines on advertising, but they can’t agree on the vehicle. The House wants a clean version of a bill — meaning they don’t want the Senate to “go against the will of the people,” which is what House leaders say the other chamber is doing.

The Senate leaders have argued that the citizens didn’t actually know what they were voting for, and they don’t actually want or need to be able to grow six plants as an individual or up to 12 plants per household.

In their most recent move, the Senate proposed S.B. 278, a bill that would ban all public smoking or vaping, but they didn’t reduce the home grow amount this time. House leaders, specifically marijuana enthusiast state Rep. Jamie Callender (R-Concord), said a public ban would not be happening under his watch.

The House and the Senate both proposed ideas, and their leaders have been arguing about whose policy is better for the state, which in turn has kept marijuana off the shelves despite being passed in Nov. and going into effect in Dec. 2023.

Republican squabbling keeps marijuana off shelves months after legalization

Republican squabbling keeps marijuana off shelves months after legalization

Even though sales didn’t happen as hoped in June, Haren said Cannabis Control is still ahead of schedule. Technically, they have until Sept. to issue the first batch of licenses.

“We’re very encouraged that we are a matter of weeks away from Ohioans being able to purchase legal, regulated, taxed, tested, adult-use marijuana products right here in the Buckeye State,” Haren added.

There will likely be no changes to marijuana policy until the end of the year since the chambers are in summer recess until after the Nov. election.

Here is a list of provisionally licensed facilities in Northeast Ohio:

Cuyahoga Co.

• Amplify Bedford: 22803 Rockside Rd, Bedford
• Amplify CH: 1782 Coventry Rd, Cleveland Heights
• Cannavitz Ventures LLC: 13501 Lakewood Heights Blvd, Cleveland
• Green Power OH: 13429 Lakewood Heights Blvd, Cleveland
• Good Day Dispensary, LLC: 34480 Vine Street, Lake
• GTI Ohio, LLC: 11818 Madison Ave, Lakewood
• GTI Ohio, LLC: 1222 Prospect Ave E, Cleveland
• GTI Ohio, LLC: 18607 Detroit Ave, Lakewood
• Nectar Markets of Ohio, LLC: 1100 Saint Clair Ave, Euclid
• OPC Retail II, LLC: 1978 W 3rd St, Cleveland
• Twice The Wellness, LLC: 27900 Chagrin Boulevard, Woodmere

Summit

• Greenleaf Apothecaries: 46 South Summit St., Akron
• FRX Health of Cuyahoga Falls: 1682 State Rd., Cuyahoga Falls
• 127 OH: 737 East North St., Akron
• Culture Retail Partners of Ohio, Inc.: 1568 E Archwood Ave., Akron
• Curaleaf Cuyahoga Falls: 1220 Buchholzer Blvd Ste. C, Cuyahoga Falls

Lorain

• CREAM Apothecaries Ohio LLC: 914 Cleveland St., Elyria
• GTI Ohio: 1920 Cooper Foster Park Rd. W, Lorain
• NMG OH 1: 709 Sugar Ln., Elyria
• Citizen Real Estate: 5152 Grove Ave., Lorain

Stark

• Citizen Real Estate, LLC: 401 Cherry Ave. NE, Canton
• Mother Know’s Best, LLC: 3224 Cleveland Ave. NW, Canton
• The Green Goat Dispensary, LLC: 4016 Greentree Ave. SW, Canton

Erie, Sandusky-area

• Ohio Patient Access, LLC: 6019 Milan Rd., Sandusky
• OPC Retail, LLC: 2344 University Dr. E, Huron
• The Forst Sandusky, LLC: 5020 Milan Rd., Sandusky

Lake

• 127 OH, LLC: 382 Blackbrook Rd., Painesville
• INSA Ohio, LLC: 27751 Chardon Rd., Willoughby Hills

Portage

• Next-Level Operators, LLC: 331 E. Main St., Kent
• Simple AG Ohio, LLC: 554 N. Chestnut St., Ravenna

Trumbull

• B Cubed Operations Ohio, LLC: 437 E Liberty St., Hubbard
• Green Leaf Medical of Ohio II, LLC: 2932 Youngstown Rd. SE, Warren

Medina

• GreenBud, LLC: 5000 Park Ave. W, Seville

Ashtabula

• Italian Herbs LLC: 2712 West Prospect Rd., Ashtabula

Mahoning

• Quest Wellness Ohio II, LLC: 4323 Market St., Youngstown

Tuscarawas

• Ratio Cannabis LLC: 1145 W. High Ave., New Philadelphia

Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on Twitter and Facebook.

Enrollment has opened for the Ohio Landowner-Hunter Access Partnership, a program meant to incentivize “property owners to provide land access to hunters.”

According to an Ohio Department of Natural Resources, enrollment for the program, which launched back in 2021, is open through July 15. ODNR said almost 20,000 acres have enrolled since the program began.

“Landowners can receive annual payments ranging from $2 per acre for crop land to $30 per acre for perennial wildlife habitats such as grasslands, wetlands, and forests,” the release reads. “Enrollment contracts are two years, with the possibility of re-enrollment.”

Hunters can access these lands from September to June, assuming they have a free daily access permit. Those permits are given out first-come-first-serve in order to not crowd land according to a press release from ODNR.

The hunters are given rules for the property, and the owner of the land is told when hunters will be on their property.

“All hunting activities except white-tailed deer gun hunting and trapping are permitted by Ohio Landowner-Hunter Access Partnership users,” the release reads. “Permits can be obtained at wildohio.gov or on the free HuntFish OH mobile app.”

Part of the funding for this program comes via the federal Farm Bill. ODNR said a recent survey found more than 80% of responding landowners in the program would recommend it to others.

If you are interested in enrolling your property, click here.