A medical-marijuana dispensary needing permission to set up shop on Edgewater Drive will have to appeal or find another location after a zoning board said no, siding with College Park neighbors and Orange County’s school board chair.

The Plants of Ruskin, a Tampa-area firm which owns cannabis company MÜV, sought a variance to bypass state law and an Orange County rule forbidding a medical-marijuana dispensary from operating within 500 feet of a school property.

Sandwiched between entrances to Bishop Moore and Edgewater high schools, the proposed site of 3550 Edgewater Drive, a former Amscot money store, is far enough from both main campuses to satisfy the law. But it is just 338 feet from 901 Maury Road — a school-owned acre used by Edgewater’s agricultural education program.

Zoning officials said 94 property-owners emailed in opposition to the dispensary’s request and two in favor.

School Board Chair Teresa Jacobs opposed the variance on behalf of the district’s governing panel, citing the harmful effects of marijuana on teen-agers and the state of Florida’s dismal regulatory history with opioids and other drugs.

“We take the safety of our students very seriously as I’m sure you do as well,” Jacobs told the zoning board, a panel she once chaired. “Just as the district has opposed variances for liquor sales and adult entertainment, the same principle certainly extends to marijuana, even though it’s unlikely that students can purchase directly from this dispensary.”

Attorney Carolyn Haslam, speaking for The Plants of Ruskin, acknowledged weed’s bad reputation.

“It’s seen as having no medical value and is known as the gateway drug despite lots of new evidence to the contrary,” she said. “But medical marijuana provides safe and effective health care to patients with a variety of medical conditions. Marijuana is medicine, and access to medicine in a safe and legal environment is crucial to promoting public health.”

Haslam said dispensary customers can’t enter the premises without a prescription and ID, admission restrictions that aren’t in place at pharmacies, bars or liquor stores, all of which are closer to Edgewater High’s campus.

Marijuana’s reputation wasn’t the problem cited by College Park residents.

They worried about adding to weekday traffic in an area where kids walking to school delay commuters daily.

Several also said the county shouldn’t bend the rules for the dispensary.

Still others, while recognizing the herbal drug’s medicinal value, said another dispensary would add to a ballooning cluster of smoke shops and pop-up businesses selling physician-prescribed cannabis and marijuana-infused products near their neighborhood.

At least three other dispensaries are within five miles of the site, including Trulieve, Fluent and Cookies.

No one spoke in favor of the dispensary’s request.

The dispensary has 15 days to appeal the zoning panel’s unanimous verdict to the board of county commissioners.

The dispensary’s lawyer did not reply to an email inquiring about a possible appeal.

shudak@orlandosentinel.com