Ohio's New Marijuana Law: A Gift or a Trap?

It's the Akron Podcast for December 10, 2025.

Our website, akron podcast.com.

If you are a marijuana user, you might want to, you know, give me your attention.

A new law that is likely to pass at the State House would establish a series of minor criminal penalties for people who improperly transport or possess marijuana in Ohio, while rolling back legal protections for users in venues like child custody or professional licensing disputes.

This is from signalacron.org and so what it really is saying, the changes come with a larger package that also imposes a comprehensive new regulatory system on intoxicating Hemp, a product that's functionality is basically similar to legal marijuana, but sold with age restrictions.

And so in a nutshell, this could affect people that use medical marijuana.

And it's just one of those things that back in 2023, Ohio voters passed issue two by a 57 to 43% vote that allowed for adults to lawfully use, buy and sell and possess, of course, cannabis.

And those rights remain broadly intact under the bill.

So if this is something that you're like, wait, wait, wait, because it might put some things in place that you don't like.

So violators could be convicted of a minor misdemeanor which entails a maximum fine of $150, but no jail time.

But if you're driving with marijuana in a car, that could be a problem and there's just some legal protection.

So rather than read the whole bill to you, I will link to the article.

On Signal Akron where you can read about this.

But there are some things where basically they're calling it the recriminalization of marijuana.

We don't talk a lot of sports on this show, but this was pretty big news.

The Rubber Ducks, you know, the minor league baseball team that plays downtown, they have been sold to a Pennsylvania based company.

And from what I read about this, the acquisition could lead to new opportunities for the Rubber Ducks.

But there aren't, of course, they just got bought and everybody like the main guy for the the Cleveland Indians, which is the Rubber Ducks feed that team, was happy about it.

The owner said he took a long time to find the right owners.

They're going to rename the stadium.

So all in all, it doesn't really sound like we should be worried about anything.

The new owner, of course, says he's going to keep prices cheap and focus on fun family entertainment.

But if you wonder what's going on at the stadium, if you see them changing the name or, well, they're under new ownership, we have some good news.

It's always great to hear that Akron based company is doing well.

And the GPD company, it began way back in 1960 ish.

They had 10 employees.

Well now they're up to 900.

And they're going to buy the historic Goodrich Building 25 if we're going to be specific, this is the one down on Main street as well as the Goodrich Building, number 24 next door and the nearby.

And this is the part I go.

Aww, Spaghetti Warehouse.

So for me, I'd actually like to see the Spaghetti Warehouse move someplace that's not there.

I like the Spaghetti Warehouse.

It's weird because I went in there, I think the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and there was like nobody in there.

And I was like, well they're not getting a lot of traffic where they're at.

And so the new people that are, it's really the old people, the GDP group haven't really said what they're going to do with the Spaghetti Warehouse.

And the manager of the Spaghetti Warehouse, which again makes me worried because there wasn't anybody in there.

They haven't really said what's going to happen.

This again is from Signal akron.org but congratulations to GDP or GPD Group for expanding.

And please don't kill the Spaghetti Warehouse.

This one I was like, well that's a thing.

And that is, you know, we all like to get scared and in October because it's Halloween and if you find yourself going, boy, I wish I could go to a haunted house during my, you know, Christmas vacation.

If you're a student or something.

Well, yeah, this is what the Akron Haunted Schoolhouse.

They're basically changing the haunted schoolhouse into a Christmas themed haunted house with really creepy looking elves.

And this is going to open.

It's already open.

The creepy Christmas haunt.

December 3rd.

So that was this week and it's still kind of got a school theme to it.

But it looks like they've kind of switched things up.

Maybe some creepy Christmas trees for people to jump out of.

But you know, if you're a person that's like, boy, wish I could get the crap scared out of me here as I'm out Christmas shopping.

You can do that now by going to again, what was the haunted schoolhouse now again known as the creepy.

The Creepy Christmas Haunt.

Akron unveiled their new logo for the city.

And this reminds me back when I was in a band, the only time you change the name of the band is if you'd kind of ruined its reputation.

It's a circle.

It says city of Akron established 1825.

It's got kind of a silhouette of the city so you can see both of our buildings.

And then there's a Goodyear blimp and for some reason.

One of those pink birds that like looks like a stork, I guess in this case.

And so I'm not quite sure why we needed a logo.

We did get rid of the rubber worker logo, which I guess kind of makes sense because, you know, we just spent a lot of money having a big statue of a rubber worker put into downtown Akron.

So let's abandon that idea.

But I do get that that's kind of more of a tip of the hat to the past.

But they unveiled it.

A whole bunch of people came out and stood in the cold to go, look, we have a new logo.

And you know, forget what JD Vance said.

How many of you all have wanted to go to downtown Akron or downtown Canton or downtown Columbus for a meal, but you're worried because the local authorities in these big cities have allowed lawlessness to run wild.

And speaking of lawlessness, we do now have a 100 shootings on the shooting map.

If you haven't seen it, I'll put a link to it in the show notes.

We had a homicide, unfortunately of a 44 year old woman.

This was at Ackley street and Miles Avenue.

And then there was a dumpster fire.

An actual, you know, people go, man, a total dumpster.

Well, this actually was dumpster file at 1130 S. Arlington St. And when they came to put out the dumpster fire, they found a dead body in the dumpster.

Let's shift some gears over to just some good news.

If you live around the Goodrich Middle School, which has been abandoned forever, and this is a case where the neighbors of that school, they were talking about all sorts of.

For 15 years now, this school has been empty and there's been people trespassing on it, there's vandalism, there have been fires there.

And basically the residents there just kept bugging channel 19.

And they would come out and they would do a story and they would basically, you know, for years be an advocate that this needs to be demolished.

And so finally that's been approved.

This is kind of an older story.

This happened at the end of November, but I was just happy to see that, you know, don't give up, get the news, you know, people involved keep putting it out there.

And you know, I don't have the audience of channel 19, but if you want to complain here, you can always go to akronpodcast.com.

Voicemail and maybe I can get the attention of Channel 19.

But Goodrich Middle School is going to bring a lot of relief to that Akron neighborhood.

There are all sorts of holiday events going on.

Here's what's going on in the world of music and comedy.

On 12th December, Gerald Albright with special guest Joe McBride will be at the Goodyear Theater playing some jazz.

Eric Gales is going to be at the Kent stage on 13 December playing some blues.

The Rubber City Rock Revival.

This is John Cafferty in the Beaver Brown Band with Peter Rivera.

That's at the Goodyear Theater.

If you've never been to the Goodyear Theater, it's a great place to go see an event.

The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band will be at the Kent stage on December 18, so we'll have more things.

Like I said, I'll put a link in the Show Notes.

There are a bunch of lists from the Beacon Journal and I think Signal had one of all the holiday events and I'll have those out at the Show Notes at akronpodcast.

Com.