Pubdate: Sun, 05 Jun 2011 Source: Telluride Daily Planet (CO) Copyright: 2011 Telluride Daily Planet, A Division of Womack Publishing Company Contact: http://www.telluridenews.com/forms/letters/ Website: http://www.telluridenews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3881 Author: Katie Klingsporn, Associate Editor MEDICAL MARIJUANA ORDINANCE GETS PRELIMINARY OK Public Hearing Scheduled for June 21 For decades, Telluride has had a liquor licensing authority to regulate the sales of booze in town. Now, it appears it will create a similar authority for the regulation of medical marijuana. The Telluride Town Counsil gave preliminary approval this week to an ordinance that would create a licensing authority as well as tweak some of the town's existing medical marijuana regulations. Council gave unanimous approval to the ordinance on Tuesday. A final reading and public hearing is scheduled for June 21. "It sets up a licensing authority and attempts to provide additional clarity and regulation in areas that the state did not regulate," said Town Attorney Kevin Geiger. The ordinance sprung from a state mandate that gave individual cities or towns in Colorado until July 1 to implement licensing regulations if they wanted to regulate medical marijuana facilities within their borders. (That deadline was recently extended, but Telluride is still on track to adopt by July 1.) If Telluride chose not to create regulations, then local facilities would have to abide by state rules. But the town took this track because it wanted to tailor regulations to its size and unique characteristics. The 41-page ordinance sets up a licensing authority with a hearing officer who would review license applications and renewals and check in with facilities on a yearly basis. Applicants must submit an operational plan, details on how and where products are cultivated, advertised, stored and processed, along with information on hours of operation, the number of employees, record keeping and a security plan. It also sets out several rules for running medical marijuana facilities in town. Some significant sections of the ordinance include: A requirement that facilities have venting systems that ensure the smell of cannabis doesn't waft into public air. A requirement that signs or ads must specify that products sold contain medical marijuana. This pertains to infused products like ice cream, candies and soda and aims to keep products from being misleading to children. A requirement that employees must be 21 or older to work at a dispensary. This brings Telluride's rules in line with the state's. Dispensaries must be at least 500 feet from schools with mandatory attendance. In Telluride, that includes the Telluride Elementary School and Telluride Middle/High School. At its meeting on Tuesday, town council decided to avoid setting distance requirement from parks or childcare facilities because the town is very small and it doesn't want to put any existing medical marijuana centers out of business. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.