West Bloomfield, MI Public Conduct: Public Marijuana Use (2026)

Section 15-221 is West Bloomfield Township's controlled-substances ordinance, rewritten by Ord. No. C-64 on March 23, 2020 to incorporate Michigan's Regulation and Taxation of Marihuana Act, MCL 333.27951 et seq. Subsection (a)(1) lists nine acts the state Marihuana Act does not authorize even though adult-use marihuana is otherwise legal, and item (a)(1)e is the township's public-consumption rule: consuming marihuana in a public place, or smoking it where the property's owner, occupant or manager has prohibited smoking, is unlawful. The rule carries its own built-in exception: "public place" does not include an area a municipality has specifically designated for consumption, provided that area is not accessible to anyone under 21.

West Bloomfield has not adopted such a designated-consumption-area ordinance, so in practice any consumption on a public street, sidewalk, park or parking lot is covered. The subsection sits alongside related but distinct prohibitions in the same list: item (a)(1)d bars extracting marihuana concentrate with butane in public, item (a)(1)g bars consuming while driving or smoking inside a moving vehicle on a public way, and item (a)(1)h bars possession or consumption on school grounds or a school bus, each a separate violation from simple public consumption.

Because item e is not among the acts subsection (a)(3)(a) excludes from the lighter penalty schedule, a person who consumes in public while holding no more than the legal 2.5-ounce personal-use amount is responsible for a civil infraction under that schedule, punished by a fine of up to $100.00 and forfeiture of the marihuana, rather than the escalating misdemeanor tiers reserved for the excluded acts. The West Bloomfield Police Department enforces the section.