When selling and manufacturing marijuana is legal in Anchorage, where will pot cultivation facilities and marijuana retail shops appear? What type of advertising will be allowed? When will the businesses open and close?

These are the types of questions now confronting Anchorage city officials, five months before the state of Alaska will receive the first license applications for marijuana businesses.

For months, officials have been examining rules in other cities, particularly in Colorado, and drafting regulations. Now, Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz has formed an internal group to work through what the administration sees as the six biggest issues, according to City Attorney Bill Falsey.

Those six big issues are: licensing; land use; criminal law; public health and edibles; policies for municipal employees; and revenue, or the question of taxation. The administration has selected a lead person for each of the six different areas of focus, and Falsey said formal internal meetings began last week. Proposals are expected to be presented to the Anchorage Assembly committee that is evaluating the regulation and taxation of the cultivation, manufacture and commercial sale of marijuana; the committee has been holding meetings since December. [Read more at the Alaska Dispatch News]