AUBURN — The city should act quickly to make sure a legal marijuana distributor doesn’t set up shop, according to police Chief Phil Crowell.

“I want to make sure we safeguard our city,” Crowell said Friday. “I’m asking that we put a moratorium on marijuana dispensaries so that we have time to come up with policies of our own.”

Crowell and Planning Director David Galbraith are scheduled Monday to discuss Maine’s new medical marijuana law and a distribution moratorium with city councilors at Monday’s workshop meeting at 5:30 p.m.

Maine voters approved an initiative allowing the sale of medical marijuana in November. The initiative didn’t specify how medical marijuana would be distributed, and the state has formed a task force to figure out how to implement the new law.

That task force is scheduled to make its recommendations by Dec. 31. Legislators could vote on the new rules early in 2010.

The city currently has zoning rules to determine how prescribed methadone, a treatment for opiate drug addiction, can be distributed legally. Those zoning rules began as a citywide moratorium, according to Galbraith.

“There are serious restrictions,” he said. “There are zoning standards and then setback standard saying they must be a certain distance from schools, day care centers and things like that.”

There are no methadone clinics in Auburn currently.

Galbraith said he imagines the city could adopt similar restrictions on medical marijuana distribution.

“We haven’t gotten to that level of detail yet, but that’s why we’re talking to the council now,” Galbraith said. “We want to know what kinds of standards they want us to set.”

Crowell said he hopes to have councilors vote on the medical marijuana moratorium in January.

“That gives us time to read whatever recommendations the task force makes and figure out how we want to deal with it,” Crowell said.

On Tuesday, Crowell is also scheduled to brief councilors on closing holes in city ordinances that would allow public nudity in establishments that don’t serve alcohol.

“Our ordinance talks about public nudity under the special entertainment license concerning places where alcohol is served,” Crowell said. “But a place could come in legally, like a coffee shop, and have public nudity. I’m just making them aware of that, and finding out if they want to change it.”

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