Pubdate: Sun, 12 Oct 2014
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2014 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Authors: Kieran Nicholson and Megan Mitchell

POT EFFORTS SPROUTING UP ACROSS STATE

Several Appear on Ballots, Including Whether Lakewood Will Allow Retail Shops.

Several marijuana measures, mostly tax questions, are on ballots 
across the state this election season, including whether Lakewood 
will allow recreational shops in the city of 145,000 residents.

The Lakewood City Council voted to put the recreational marijuana 
question on the ballot in July after a public hearing on the subject. 
At the July 14 meeting, the council banned potential marijuana 
businesses in the city, including recreational marijuana social 
clubs, hash oil production, and the cultivation, manufacturing and 
testing of recreational marijuana.

Colorado Christian University, located in Lakewood, supports a ban on 
recreational marijuana shops and donated $5,000 to the anti-pot 
committee, which spent $4,000 on yard signs distributed to Lakewood 
residents who back a ban.

Those who support recreational marijuana shops in Lakewood registered 
a committee called Responsible Lakewood. The committee has ties to 
LivWell, a group of medical marijuana dispensaries along the Front Range.

At least 22 municipalities throughout Colorado have marijuana-related 
questions on November ballots, according to the Colorado Municipal League.

Some members of the Northglenn City Council are upset over a tax 
measure that the Adams County commissioners put on the ballot. They 
say it competes with a city marijuana tax also being posed to voters.

The Adams County board of commissioners voted Sept. 2 to put on the 
ballot a 3 percent tax hike on recreational marijuana and related 
products countywide.

Likewise, Northglenn voted Sept. 25 to ask voters to raise medical 
and recreational marijuana taxes by 2 percent in order to fund a new 
combination recreation center, theater and senior center.

"There was no communication whatsoever," said Northglenn Ward 3 
Councilor Kyle Mullica. "(The commissioners) want to come in and tax 
the municipalities that do have marijuana, yet they don't have it 
themselves. We're the main people in the county that this is going to affect."

There is currently amoratorium in Adams County, putting off the 
decision to allow or ban recreational marijuana in unincorporated 
areas until the end of the year. The county tax would draw from 
Northglenn and Aurora, the only two cities in the county to begin 
regulating local sales of marijuana. Federal Heights voters will be 
asked whether to approve recreational and medical marijuana shops and 
a 10 percent sales tax on recreational marijuana and products.

"We weren't even aware that (Northglenn was putting a marijuana tax 
on the ballot)," Adams County Commissioner Eva Henry said. "It's one 
of those miscommunications that go both ways. We could have been 
talking to them, and they could have been talking to us."

In Aurora, voters will be asked whether to raise $2.4 million in the 
first annual year through a 5 percent excise tax on "unprocessed 
retail marijuana that is sold or transferred from a retail marijuana 
cultivation facility." The question also calls for an additional 2 
percent sales tax on recreational marijuana products.

Lafayette voters are asked whether to raise $240,000 annually 
beginning in 2015 with a new 5 percent excise tax on retail marijuana.

Lyons asks voters whether to approve a 3.5 percent marijuana tax 
increase in 2015, which would raise $95,000 annually.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom