Pubdate: Fri, 31 May 2013 Source: Denver Post (CO) Copyright: 2013 The Denver Post Corp Contact: http://www.denverpost.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122 Author: Jeremy P. Meyer Page: 3A COUNCIL PLANS STRAWPOLL ON POT Denver City Council on Monday will hold a straw poll of its 13 members on whether the state's largest city should opt out on allowing recreational marijuana sales. The informal poll at a committee meeting Monday afternoon will determine whether the city should move on to build a regulatory structure to accommodate Colorado's new marijuana laws. The council is expected to vote to opt in. "This is just to get it on the record," said Councilman Charlie Brown, chairman of the committee. "Then we are going to go page by page through the questions that we have to answer." Denver has become a national model in how it regulates medical-marijuana dispensaries and grow facilities. Now, 207 dispensaries operate in the city-slightly more than the number of liquor stores. And as of April 30, more than half of the 107,262 Colorado patients who possess a valid registry ID card for medical marijuana live in the Denver area with 17,969 or 17 percent living in Denver County. In 2012 there were $130 million in gross sales of medical marijuana that generated $4.6 million in sales tax revenue for Denver, up from $1.8 million in 2010. City leaders have been waiting since November for the state to craft its rules so they can begin building a municipal framework for how sales will be regulated in Denver. Gov. John Hickenlooper on Tuesday signed into law six bills for how the state will regulate and tax recreational marijuana. Now, it's up to the cities and counties. - --- MAP posted-by: Matt