Pleasant Ridge is reviewing an application for a marijuana license from Noxx, a business that hopes to open at 23622 Woodward Ave.
By: Mike Koury | Woodward Talk | Published December 19, 2022
PLEASANT RIDGE — A new application for a recreational marijuana facility came before the Pleasant Ridge City Commission this month.
At its Dec. 13 meeting, the commission reviewed an application from Rapid Fish 2 LLC, which applied for a marijuana facility license to operate a business at 23622 Woodward Avenue called “Noxx.”
Originally, the commission had approved its second and final license for a business called Skymint in August. The business informed Pleasant Ridge that it was withdrawing its application in October.
Noxx now is applying with the same application as Skymint. This includes “the site plan, operating agreement and other supporting information,” though the building design was changed, city documents state.
“They’re submitting an application, which is by and large identical to the Skymint application,” City Manager James Breuckman said. “Skymint did all the hard work for them on this with all the traffic studies and parking studies, all of that, revising the site plan probably four times. Noxx is benefitting and keeping all that in place. Of course, it is a different operator so they have a different model. They have a little bit of a different design and branding than Skymint. Those are probably the major changes.”
Benjamin Joffe, representing Rapid Fish, stated that they’re excited to potentially be a part of Pleasant Ridge.
Joffe said the similarities to Skymint in the application were by design. In putting it together, he said, they reviewed meetings and comments made by the commission, residents and stakeholders, and what they found was to meet the goals and objectives of the city, the best way to do that was to stay as close to the Skymint application as possible.
“We do have the same footprint on the building, we have all the same parking, we have the same directional indicators in that parking lot to try and keep people out of the alley, because we do know that was a big thing,” he said. “We’re also committed to those same commitments that Skymint was making, including working with some of the neighbors, including installing a fence in the alley in conjunction with that neighbor. So we want to be here. We want to be a part of the community.”
Reiterating what he said to the team from Skymint, Mayor Bret Scott said most of the commentary Pleasant Ridge received for that project had very little to do with it being a marijuana store.
“It’s about traffic,” he said. “It’s about, ‘What do we do with bikes?’ It’s about, ‘Are there people lingering outside? What’s it look like at night? Is it a distraction? Is it noisy? Are you going to have noisy trash receptacles?’ All these things are the things that really concern people on any business that goes into town.”
Noxx is expected to come back before the City Commission with a potential vote on the application at its January meeting. The Dec. 13 presentation can be viewed on the city of Pleasant Ridge’s YouTube page.
For more information on when the next meeting will be held, visit www.cityofpleasantridge.org.