North Pole, Mat-Su vote on pot businesses

ANCHORAGE — Residents in two parts of Alaska were deciding Tuesday whether to allow marijuana businesses to operate.

Voters in the city of North Pole voted to prohibit marijuana businesses but those in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough voted to allow them.

North Pole Councilwoman Elizabeth Holm sponsored the initiative, hoping to ban pot sales in the Christmas-themed city, where light poles are shaped like candy canes.

“It creates kind of a safe haven for people who want that boundary in their lifestyle,” she told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. “If we ban it, then at least we are creating that barrier.”

Residents of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough also debated whether to ban sales of the drug in unincorporated areas of the municipality the size of West Virginia.

Wasilla and Palmer have already banned the businesses, KTVA-TV reported.

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