Pubdate: Sat, 07 Feb 2015
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2015 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: John Aguilar

POT RESISTANCE ON RISE

A Growing Number of Communities Are Pushing Back Against State's New Industry.

The building stands out as oddly new on a gritty stretch of West 
Colfax Avenue, a green cross affixed to its facade, ready to beckon 
customers to sample the latest array of Colorado cannabis products.

But a group of neighborhood residents and civic leaders say a 
recreational pot shop at Colfax and Wolff Street will only detract 
from their efforts to rejuvenate and improve this faded urban 
corridor on Denver's west side. They are fighting back.

Last week, the group filed a letter with the Denver Department of 
Excise and Licenses to challenge the proposed store's proximity to 
schools and drug treatment facilities. They question its effect on 
children and those in the community seeking help for substance abuse problems.

Chaim Abrams, operations manager for the Yeshiva Toras Chaim 
Talmudical Seminary just a few blocks from where the store would go 
in, said a pot shop in the neighborhood sends the wrong message.

"We attract a lot of out-of-state students. It would not be good for 
our reputation," Abrams said. "People would think that this is the 
school in Denver to get pot. That's not a great recruiting tool."

The resistance in west Denver is just the latest local flare-up 
against the state's burgeoning cannabis industry, which began legal 
sales of recreational pot 13 months ago.

A growing number of communities-from Palmer Lake, Brush and Granby to 
Breckenridge, Wheat Ridge and Pueblo - are pushing back against the 
explosion of marijuana shops across Colorado, which at latest count 
number more than 330.

The resistance efforts are generally small, confined to a single 
community or neighborhood, and revolve around familiar complaints 
about marijuana sales, such as odor, health effects, crime and 
exposure to children.

But the grassroots approach that detractors take can yield powerful results.

Jen Shepherd, a Wheat Ridge mom who founded the anti-pot group 
Parents for a Healthy Colorado last year, relied on community 
activism to help keep out a marijuana store proposed for the corner 
of West 38thAvenue and Miller Street. She banded with neighbors last 
summer and distributed more than 1,000 fliers to let people know 
about the store.

Residents rose up against it, prompting city leaders to scuttle the 
project by capping the number of cannabis businesses in Wheat Ridge 
to the number that exists now.

Shepherd said it often takes a storefront opening up close by to get 
people to finally sit up and take notice. As pot shops proliferate 
across the state, she said, their higher concentration and greater 
visibility is compelling more people to say no.

"Until you see it and are affected by it, you don't really know 
what's going on and don't really need to know what's going on," she said.

Meg Collins, executive director of the Cannabis Business Alliance, 
said the push back the industry is getting represents "growing pains" 
from Colorado's experiment with legal pot. She acknowledged that 
marijuana stores are not always appropriate at any given location, 
even if a community's zoning allows it, and that the best thing the 
industry can do is try to be as good a neighbor as possible.

"It's really important that the community in which you are doing 
business knows what your business is," Collins said. "A lot of time 
people are afraid of what they do not know. These protests put our 
industry on notice that from a professional standpoint we have to be 
on top of our game."

Not in my backyard

Mike Elliott, executive director of the Marijuana Industry Group, 
said he's not surprised by the concerns raised on West Colfax in 
Denver, which has 138 recreational pot shops.

"In Denver, there is a sense that there are plenty of stores 
already," he said. "We want to find that right balance where we are 
being responsible members of the community and an asset."

So far, the conflicts over pot sales, Elliott said, have been 
confined to individual neighborhoods and are driven largely by a "not 
in my backyard" mentality rather than by a wider denunciation of the 
entire industry.

That was the case in Breckenridge, where in December the town counsel 
upheld an ordinance banning recreational marijuana stores from Main 
Street. Jack Wolfe, who helped head up a citizen effort under the 
name Breckenridge for Thoughtful Marijuana, said the mountain town 
always has been very accepting of cannabis, and his campaign against 
downtown pot shops was based solely on economics, not on any 
perceived health or moral grounds.

"We obviously as a community accept marijuana," said Wolfe, noting 
that 72 percent of Breckenridge residents voted in favor of Amendment 
64 in 2012. "So our focus was where it should be-not if it should be."

Breckenridge, he said, has spent years branding itself as family- 
friendly, and having a cannabis store on tourist-choked Main Street 
was simply too audacious.

A nonbinding vote of the people late last year confirmed his theory, 
with voters choosing to keep recreational marijuana shops away from 
downtown by a ratio of more than 2- to- 1. Wolfe said more than 100 
Breckenridge residents helped with the campaign, affirming it as a 
truly grassroots effort.

"You have to consider who the market is that comes to Breckenridge 
and not offend that market," Wolfe said. "( Pot is) not mainstream in 
the United States, and we weren't ready to have it on our Main Street."

But local efforts to counter the industry have consequences.

A step back

In the case of Breckenridge, the Breckenridge Cannabis Club had to 
vacate its space on Main Street after five years there. Its final day 
downtown was Sunday, and Monday morning it opened at a new location 
more than a mile away under the name Backcountry Cannabis Co.

Co-owner Caitlin McGuire said tourists accounted for 90 percent of 
her business at the old location. Now that the store is out of the 
town's tourist zone and clustered with three other retail pot shops, 
she expects to take a major financial hit.

McGuire said she understands the town's concern about tourist 
traffic, but she said she was always a good steward for Breckenridge, 
confiscating fake IDs and putting on a welcoming face for intrigued 
out-of-towners wondering what a world with legal weed is like.

"It's a huge step back," she said. "Hopefully, over the next few 
years, we can continue to ease people's concerns about this industry."

While the resistance in Breckenridge was narrowly tailored, other 
resistance movements in Colorado have been more widespread, 
geographically and conceptually.

In December, elected leaders in Granby, which bans recreational pot 
sales, voted to annex land in unincorporated Grand County, which 
allows it, to prevent a pot shop from opening on its border.

Nearly 135 miles away in Palmer Lake, just north of Colorado Springs, 
voters in the town of 2,500 twice rejected efforts to legalize 
recreational marijuana sales last year. Chris Amenson led the group 
Citizens Against Legalized Marijuana of Palmer Lake to get an 
initiative on the November ballot prohibiting recreational pot shops 
in town until at least 2017.

He spent $ 10,000 on the effort and assembled a team of a dozen 
locals to help with his campaign. Amenson is matter-of-fact about why 
he waged battle against recreational pot in Palmer Lake.

"I did it because I have school- age kids and I didn't think Palmer 
Lake was the place to have it," he said. "A lot of towns are anxious 
to get the tax dollars from marijuana sales, but you have to think 
about what comes with it."

Denver Councilwoman Susan Shepherd, who represents the West Colfax 
neighborhood where the latest marijuana dispute has arisen, overall 
praises the way the industry has conducted itself. But she also 
understands the uneasiness her constituents feel.

With an emergency family shelter, a facility offering addiction 
treatment programs and a longtime Orthodox Jewish community in the 
immediate area, Shepherd said the neighborhood may not be the best 
place for a new marijuana store.

A final decision from the city on a license for the store, which is 
being proposed by Cannabis for Health LLC, could come as soon as next 
week. A representative with the company declined to comment on the situation.

"Sixty-seven percent of Denver voters voted for legalized marijuana," 
Shepherd said, "but that doesn't necessarily mean they wanted a pot 
shop near them."

[sidebar]

Grassroots resistance

A look at some of the community efforts against pot across Colorado:

Denver: Residents of the West Colfax neighborhood are actively 
opposing a proposed recreational marijuana store at the corner of 
Colfax Avenue and Wolff Street. A decision on a license for the store 
could come as soon as next week.

Wheat Ridge: Neighbors near West 38th Avenue and Miller Street rose 
up in opposition to a proposed pot store at the intersection. The 
City Council last month limited the number of stores in the city, 
meaning the new one could not be built.

Palmer Lake: A group called Citizens Against Legalized Marijuana of 
Palmer Lake pushed a ballot issue in November that would keep 
recreational pot sales out of the small town until at least 2017. The 
measure passed.

Granby: The town's Board of Trustees voted in December to annex a 
parcel in unincorporated Grand County to keep a pot shop from opening 
on its border.

Brush: A man's plan to turn a former prison into a marijuana grow 
operation was halted in August when elected leaders voted to extend a 
ban on recreational pot businesses to 2016.

Breckenridge: The town council in December voted to keep recreational 
cannabis shops off Main Street, forcing a longtime downtown store to 
move to the outskirts of town. The campaign against Main Street pot 
shops was led by a citizens group, Breckenridge for Thoughtful 
Marijuana. Pueblo County: A citizens group called Pueblo for Positive 
Impact formed in 2014 in response to the proliferation of 
recreational marijuana stores.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom