Potential medical marijuana site in Immokalee at center of fire code exemption question
Jake Allen
A potential medical marijuana treatment center in Immokalee could be at the center of a decision made regarding fire code exemptions and marijuana facilities in Florida.
Oakes Farms, an agribusiness operated out of Collier County, is in the early stages of applying to bring a medical marijuana treatment center to 106 14th Street in Immokalee.
Medical marijuana licenses are distributed through the Department of Health’s Office of Medical Marijuana Use.
Although the application is yet to be approved, the North Collier Fire Control and Rescue District is seeking guidance from the state Fire Marshal’s Office on whether it would exempt the proposed facility from a section of the Florida Fire Prevention Code.
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Fire Marshal Dale Fey Jr. submitted a petition for declaratory statement from the Florida Department of Financial Services regarding how the fire code should be enforced on the proposed marijuana grow and processing facility.
Assistant Chief Eloy Ricardo said a declaratory statement is used for information gathering purposes and helps clear up ambiguity in the fire code.
All requests for declaratory statements go through the Florida Department of Financial Services as Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, who heads DFS, serves as State Fire Marshal.
"Sometimes the questions about the code we try to answer are not for today but could be for something five to 10 years down the road,” Ricardo said.
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The question the fire district will try to get answered is whether a marijuana grow and processing facility can use the 633.202(16)(b)1 section of the code to claim an agricultural exemption and avoid complying with Fire and Life Safety Codes.
This section of the code allows non-residential farm buildings, in which the occupancy is limited to 35 people or less, to be exempt from Florida Fire Prevention Code, including the national codes and Life Safety Code.
The question will center around the fact that the building would be used as a marijuana grow and processing facility.
The petition for a declaratory statement was submitted by Fey Jr. on Aug. 9.
Ricardo said he was unsure of when the Department of Financial Services would have an answer for the fire district.
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The department could ask for more information regarding the building in question, decide the building in question is exempt or not exempt from the fire code or even throw the entire petition out and ask the fire district to reapply with more information, Ricardo said.
Hundreds of applications are sent to the Department of Health requesting a medical marijuana treatment center license and only about four are chosen to receive licenses each year, which makes the Oakes Farms application a long shot, said Alfie Oakes, owner of Oakes Farms.
The site is already used for the growing and processing of agricultural products, Oakes said.