While all three areas share open land common to suburban Midwest, each community has its own set of distinct characteristics.

 

Southwest Ohio grow sites

 

• Anderson Township, near Newtown, is a mixed residential and industrial area.  Neighbors include businesses like Puppy Playcare, Gymnastics Central, Ethel’s Tavern and several residential streets.

• Clermont County, near the airport, Camp Allyn and Batavia Middle School, sits in a highly residential area that includes a church and a subdivision under construction.

• Middletown, near the Monroe corporation limit, lies in a mostly industrial area including propane and machine shops, just up the street from Monroe Junior-Senior High School.

 

A business opportunity

 

No matter the site, most of the neighbors students interviewed were aware of the pending addition to their neighborhoods, and many welcomed it.    

 

Next door to the proposed grow site in Middletown, on a lot dotted with large, empty tanks, sits a propane shop called Amerigas, the local outlet of the nation’s largest propane company.

 

Forklift driver Aaron Noble, 35, cited the area’s current lack of economic growth as the reason he’s optimistic about Issue 3. “I think that it’s good for Middletown because it’s good for jobs,” Noble said. “It’s revenue for Middletown. Middletown’s dead. They say it could bring a thousand jobs or so.”

 

Responsible Ohio says the measure will bring 30,000 new jobs to the state “in growing facilities, testing and manufacturing facilities, retail facilities and in other related industries,” said Faith Oltman, a spokesperson for the group. “This includes the opportunity for thousands of Ohioans to own their own retail stores.”

 

To opponents like Ohioans Against Marijuana Monopolies, such growth raises concern. In their official argument against Issue 3, they note the proposal allows for as many as 1,159 stores, which would represent “more pot retailers than McDonalds or Starbucks and three times as many liquor stores.”

 

An employee at another business near the sparsely developed part of Butler County sees both sides but supports Issue 3. Mike Williams, 26, works at a large distribution center for Kohl’s that lies on the nearly empty stretch of road that leads to the proposed site. “This area’s pretty dead,” Williams said. “This is a good chance for this area to get a boost, and I think it could really help.”

 

Susan Huebner, 52, who tends bar at Ethel’s Tavern near Anderson Township’s grow site, expressed enthusiasm for potential job increases.  

 

“People are probably growing the stuff right under our noses, and we don’t even know it,” Huebner said. “So, why not just know where it’s at? I think there’s going to be work generated from it.”

 

Paul Schaff, a private contractor whose business also is located near the Anderson grow site, doesn’t see the marijuana sites as being different from any other farm.

 

“It’s just going to be another product.” Schaff said. “There’s farms around here that grow corn. There’s multiple sod farms around here… Everybody’s growing something, so what’s the difference?”

 

Security concerns

 

While some community members think the grow sites will resemble average crop fields, Issue 3 would not allow outdoor cultivation or accessibility to the public.

 

“The grow facilities will be indoor and secure,” Oltman said.

 

Some residents remain nervous. Elissa Driscoll, a student at University of Cincinnati Blue Ash, lives near the proposed Anderson grow site, a spot that currently holds a children’s gymnastics center up for sale.

 

“What worries me the most would be people coming back here to try to steal,” Driscoll said. “I worry about my property being close to it. I am aware of the benefits of marijuana. You know, go for it. But, being close to it, that’s the part that worries me.”

 

Workers at businesses near the Middletown location also wonder how their new marijuana neighbors’ security efforts will measure up. A receptionist at Dixie Machinery Company worried about possible traffic generated by potential onlookers, and how that will affect the company’s own security initiatives.

 

ResponsibleOhio’s Oltman said the growing facilities will address this issue. “Everyone plans to make security a high priority,” she said.

 

It’s an argument Kohl’s employee Williams said makes sense to working class employees who understand the value of a product to a company. “It’s pretty valuable stuff, so I’m sure they’re going to be keeping a close eye on it,” Williams said.

 

Some see little positive effect

 

All the assurances don’t convince some neighbors. In Batavia, a Clermont County village reminiscent of early America, with streets lined by Victorian houses, residents’ reactions mirrored their community’s traditional style.

 

The pastor of Emmanuel United Methodist Church said he was unaware of its proximity to potential budding drug commerce until contacted for this story. Joe Royer does not approve of the new mass marijuana industry that may move into his quaint village.

 

“We’re a church, so obviously we don’t support the use of drugs,” Rev. Royer said.

 

Neither does retired police officer James Beckman, whose property in Batavia sits right next to the prospective grow site.

 

“I wouldn’t like to have that in my backyard,” Beckman said. “I fought the stuff for 36 years. Even if it becomes legal it’s going to cause nothing but problems.”

 

Three miles from the site, school buses roll by twice a day on their way to Batavia Elementary School. The Batavia school system has minced no words in its opposition to the marijuana proposal. “I have a difficult time seeing any positive effects from Issue 3 passing,” Superintendent Keith Millard said in a press release.

 

It’s a sentiment you hear from school officials near the Middletown grow site, too. Monroe Junior and Senior High Schools sit as landmarks commuters would pass on the way to the site on Yankee Road.

 

The Monroe Board of Education recently issued a resolution denouncing the prospect of marijuana as their neighbor right down Yankee Road. “We fear that legalizing marijuana further threatens the health and safety of our young people and will have a negative impact on student achievement,” the board’s statement said. “We do not need another legalized drug to tempt our young people.”

 

It’s a theme you also hear from Batavia’s mayor, John Thebout. He worries that legal access to marijuana will translate to higher use of other drugs. “Promoting recreational drug use in any form is bad policy,” Thebout said. “I speak for myself and for the Batavia Police Department.”

 

Butler County resident Williams dismissed these concerns. “Cops need to be worrying about more important things,” he said. “Prohibition has never worked and I don’t see it working now.”

 

But some neighbors who support marijuana legalization promise to oppose a neighboring grow site because the legislation doesn’t go far enough.

 

In the welcoming lobby of a small brick building in Anderson Township, Mark Patt, owner of Puppy Playcare, shouted over the din of barking dogs behind him. “I will vote 100 percent against it,” Patt said. “It’s an oligopoly. I can’t stand that. That’s not how this country is formed.”

 

The proposal will be described on the ballot as a monopoly. As a result, Issue 2 has been added to the Nov. 3 ballot, which would make initiatives that create monopolies unconstitutional.

 

The limited commercial growth has drawn criticism from both sides.

 

Ohioans Against Marijuana Monopolies said the proposal would “cement in the Constitution a billion-dollar marijuana monopoly for a small group of wealthy investors” who “set their own preferential tax rates that can’t be changed.”

 

The National Organization for Marijuana Legalization supports Issue 3, but says it is a “bitter pill to swallow… there are far better ways to legalize marijuana.”

 

Voters will decide

 

ResponsibleOhio is mounting a campaign believed to be in excess of $36 million to convince all Ohio voters that the 10 commercial grow sites will provide a safe source of revenue for every community in the state.

 

It’s up to Ohio’s voters whether Issue 3 provides an economic boost from a harmless industry or a communal threat from a controlled substance.

 

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The story was produced by a University of Cincinnati class of journalism and electronic media students.

 

UC students Staci Boothe, Tyler Dunn, William Finn, Chris Glover, Corey Griffin, Taylor Jackson, Faith Tucker and Spencer Tuckerman contributed. 

 

The class was taught by Bob Jonason, assistant professor educator of journalism, and Hagit Limor, assistant professor of electronic media. Jonason and Limor served as editors of the project.