Pubdate: Sun, 13 Oct 2013
Source: Vail Daily (CO)
Copyright: 2013 Vail Daily
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/wo3Ts7AI
Website: http://www.vaildaily.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3233
Authors: Barbara Allen, Buddy Sims

TURN THIS DISASTER AROUND

Eagle County second-home owners:

This letter is to notify second-home owners of a Land Use Regulation 
4476 that will be passed by our Board of Commissioners on Oct. 29 at 
10 a.m. at the Eagle County Building. This regulation will approve 
retail marijuana establishments for unincorporated Eagle County - 
that is Eagle-Vail, Edwards, Dotsero and El Jebel. The new state laws 
define these new businesses as a retail marijuana store, a marijuana 
products facility, a marijuana cultivation facility and a marijuana 
testing facility. After Jan. 1, numerous retail marijuana stores will 
be selling 1/4 ounce of marijuana (about 40 joints) to anyone over 21 
years old producing a passport or out-of-state driver's license.

There are 22,679 out-of-state Eagle County property tax account 
record addresses that include an estimated 16,000 second-home owners 
owning one or more properties. Most out-of-state owners are not 
eligible to vote in elections. Of the over 52,000 residents, you are 
a huge non-voting percentage; however, your opinion to the Board of 
Commissioners does count as a vote. Last November, 14,603 county 
residents voted for retail marijuana and 7,307 voted against pot in 
our county. This vote will affect your vacation home.

We request you fax, call, email, write letters to the Board of 
Commissioners, Vail Daily newspaper or attend the Board of 
Commissioners meeting to protest the passage of this Land Use 
Regulation 4476 zoning regulation. Vail and Beaver Creek resorts will 
become the first ski resorts in the world in close proximity where 
legal recreational marijuana can be sold to the public. Our families 
did not move to the valley to live next to drug dealers in our neighborhoods.

We attended the Eagle County Planning Commission meeting on Oct. 2, 
where they moved the marijuana cultivation facilities to agriculture 
land but added marijuana social clubs to the land use regulation so 
pot smokers would have a place to legally smoke. The Planning 
Commission, in public, estimated over 300,000 pot smoking tourists 
the first winter and over $337,000 in revenue for the county. 
Further, it was estimated this will add around 2,000 pot smoking 
tourists per day on our county roads and ski lifts. It is against 
both state and federal law to smoke pot in public, on ski lifts, in 
moving vehicles, on federal land, or in county buildings.

If no action is taken by second homeowners to help turn this disaster 
around, then expect these drug dealers to influence your lives 
forever. At this time, the only chance to stop this madness is to 
change the public opinion in our valley and the minds of our three 
County Commissioners before Oct. 29. Addresses follow for your 
consideration. We request your support before Oct. 29.

Contact the Eagle County commissioners by e-mail at  or through County Planning at  by phone at 970-328-8605, by fax at 
970-328-8629, or via snail mail to PO Box 850, 500 Broadway, Eagle, 
CO 81631-0850. Contact the Vail Daily newspaper at  through Letters to Editor at  or by snail mail at PO Box 81, Vail, CO 81658.

Barbara Allen

Edwards

Buddy Sims

Edwards
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom