The ability of Oak Harbor residents to participate in a medical marijuana cooperative under the state’s new rules will likely be severely restricted.

The city, however, will soon have two retailers offering both medical and recreational marijuana.

The City Council is scheduled to consider adopting a code amendment at a meeting tonight which will incorporate medical pot rules — largely set by the state — into the city’s current recreational marijuana code.

A two-year moratorium on medical-marijuana-related operations in the city will sunset Sept. 1.

The city council adopted the moratorium in order to give the state time to decide how the medical side should be regulated after Initiate 502 legalized recreational marijuana. The state’s new regulations on medical marijuana finally went into effect this summer.

In many ways, both the state’s regulations and the proposed amendment to city code treat recreational and medical pot operations the same.

Like recreational businesses, medical pot operations would have to be 1,000 feet away from “sensitive areas” like schools, parks and other places children would congregate, Senior Planner Dennis Lefevre told the council in a recent workshop.

The new medical marijuana cooperative law eliminated the old marijuana collectives. The laws regarding cooperatives are strict.

The grow operations have to be in homes, involve only four patients each and follow guidelines to keep the sight and smell from neighbors.

In addition, a cooperative has to be at least one mile away from any existing retailers.

Lefevre showed the council a map of Oak Harbor that outlined all restrictions on the siting of pot cooperatives. Only a few, small pockets of residential property falls with the rules.

“It’s really pretty limiting when you place all the state regulations on them,” he said in an interview.

At the workshop, Councilman Joel Servatius expressed concern with the idea of someone having a grow operation in an apartment. Development Services Director Steve Powers, however, said the area where cooperatives would be allowed is so small planners didn’t think it was necessary to explore other ways to restrict them.

Medical marijuana patients will have two retailers to choose from soon. Lefevre explained that the Liquor and Cannabis Board allocated an additional retail license for Oak Harbor, bringing the total to two.

Kaleafa opened last year on State Highway 20 at the north end of the city. The store is now licensed to sell both recreational and medical weed.

A new pot store called Greenhand also has medical and recreational licenses. It’s set to open at a site on Goldie Street.

The Oak Harbor council is holding its regular meeting Wednesday instead of Tuesday because of National Night Out.