Pubdate: Sat, 02 Jan 2016
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2016 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: John Aguilar
Page: A1

MARIJUANA DIVIDE

Towns That Sell Pot Can Rankle the Neighbors That Don't

Log Lane Village - An interesting David-and-Goliath dynamic is taking 
shape across Colorado's burgeoning commercial cannabis sector, with 
tiny communities friendly to the sale of recreational marijuana 
living in the shadow of large - and totally potshop-free - neighbors.

Manitou Springs, just a few miles from Colorado Springs, is the only 
place within a reasonable distance of the state's second-largest city 
where you can buy recreational weed. On the Eastern Plains, Log Lane 
Village plays the same role vis-a-vis Fort Morgan, a city 10 times its size.

Garden City, which weighs in at less than 1 square mile, has four 
recreational pot businesses. On the other side of 25th Street lurks 
Greeley, with more than 96,000 residents. It has none.

And in the mountains, you can't pick up a bottle of indica gummies in 
the marquee resort town of Vail. But less than five minutes away, you 
can shop from a cluster of cannabis vendors in what has become known 
as the "Green Mile." There are at least four examples in Colorado 
where the larger or more prominent municipality has banned the sale 
of recreational pot but the smaller, adjacent community has permitted sales.

The community pairings, in all their strange divergence, are the 
result of Amendment 64, the pot legalization law passed by Colorado 
voters three years ago. The groundbreaking measure specifically left 
it up to individual towns and cities to decide whether marijuana 
businesses would be allowed.

Second anniversary

Friday marked the second anniversary of recreational marijuana sales 
in Colorado.

"I think it's a great model," said Dave Chapin, Vail's new mayor. "It 
gives towns a lot more say. Anytime you can get things down to the 
local level, that's a strength for the community."

So far, the pot partnership between big and small appears to be working.

Crime hasn't increased appreciably, nor has it had significant 
spillover effects. Additional sales tax revenues and economic 
stimulus have given a shot in the arm to the small communities that 
really need it. And the larger cities, with their more carefully 
laid-out downtown districts, get to keep their civic brand potfree 
and family-friendly.

Jerry Garner, Greeley's chief of police, likens the situation in his 
city to what existed with liquor half a century ago, when Greeley 
established itself as a "dry" town and Garden City became the 
destination for those seeking a stiff drink.

"I see a parallel there," he said.

But that doesn't mean Garner wants to deal with the potential 
criminal activity associated with what has long been an illegal 
enterprise. If Garden City is willing take on that burden, he said, 
that's up to Garden City.

"Marijuana stores are one more criminal target, and frankly, I don't 
need one more criminal target," he said.

Yet pot shops as a target for thieves and burglars hasn't proved to 
be the problem many feared, according to several law enforcement 
officials interviewed for this story. Even Garner said he hasn't seen 
any evidence that Garden City's pot shops are nudging up Greeley's crime stats.

Inside Garden City's tightly drawn borders, police aren't any busier 
than they were before pot sales began in 2014, according to Weld 
County sheriff 's Cpl. Matthew Turner, whose agency provides the city 
with police services.

"We do not give Garden City any extra resources to help manage the 
stores - we are just doing business as usual," he said. "The stores 
are not any more of a burden than we are used to."

State law and tourists

In Vail, Cmdr. Craig Bettis said the biggest concern regarding 
recreational marijuana has been consumers - mostly tourists from out 
of state or from overseas - who smoke it openly, unaware that state 
law prohibits public consumption of the drug.

During the first two years of legal sales, the ski resort town has 
taken the approach of issuing warnings and educating violators about 
Colorado's pot laws - instead of issuing them citations.

"We had to take into account that these people are coming from states 
or countries where marijuana is not legal," Bettis said. "Are we 
really helping them by sending them home with a ticket?"

Allowing pot sales in Vail itself, he said, "would have compounded 
the issue." So visitors to Vail seeking legal weed drive just a few 
miles west on Interstate 70 into unincorporated Eagle County, where 
several pot shops await.

It's an arrangement that works well for Jill Ryan, a commissioner for 
Eagle County.

"It makes sense not to have (pot shops) in the tourist towns," Ryan 
said. "We support Vail, and we want families there to have a good time."

Mike Elliott, executive director of the Marijuana Industry Group, 
said that although the symbiosis between small town and large city 
may appear to be a win-win for both communities, the places with the 
most restrictions in place come out at the losing end.

Recreational marijuana bans, he said, denote a "head-in-the-sand 
mentality" that allows the black market in cannabis to flourish while 
the city forfeits sales tax revenues that could benefit the community.

"This comes down to people who don't want to see it or think that it 
doesn't exist," Elliott said. "Do they want to control it or not? And 
by opting out, they're not controlling it."

Steve Eby, owner of East Platte Avenue Liquors in Fort Morgan, agrees.

"If the city wants to make money and you can't stop it from being 
sold next door, you might as well collect it," he said. "Why lose 
those tax dollars? It's crazy."

In Log Lane Village, with a population of less than 1,000, more than 
one-quarter of the town's sales tax revenues comes from its two 
marijuana shops. Log Lane's budget will leap from $264,000 this year 
to $400,000 in 2016. The town already used some of its newfound 
revenues to repave two blocks. It plans to repave two more blocks in 
the spring.

"There were pot holes you could fall into," said Log Lane Village 
Trustee Robin Mastin, who owns a liquor store across the street from 
pot retailer Green Stop. "We told people that when recreational sales 
went in, all of it would go toward fixing this town up."

In Manitou Springs, finance director Rebecca Davis characterized 
2015's 62 percent increase in sales tax revenues over 2014 - from 
$2.4 million to more than $3.8 million - as "astonishing." Manitou 
has two retail marijuana stores.

The town 5 miles west of Colorado Springs has allocated $40,000 of 
that additional money to its road fund and is funding much-needed 
flood mitigation projects. It also hired a private security company 
this past summer to patrol its tourist-dependent downtown.

Mayor Marc Snyder said the town's reserve budget has swelled from 
$160,000 six years ago to $1.6 million in 2015.

"It's been an incredible shot in the arm for Manitou," he said.

In Garden City, nearly 43 percent of the $1.06 million the town 
collected in sales tax revenues in fiscal 2014 - $451,808 - came from 
retail cannabis. Garden City has used some of the new money to 
revitalize Eighth Avenue with new streetscaping, to expand Town Hall 
and to purchase a town vehicle.

"I think Greeley, as a city, is missing out quite a bit," said Paul 
Fuentes, a manager at pot shop Smokey's 420 House in Garden City. 
"Any municipal government can use tax revenue."

The benefits aren't just limited to increased sales tax revenues, 
said Lisa Pearson, manager of Green Stop in Log Lane Village. She 
said the improvements Green Stop has made to its building at the 
corner of Maine Street and Colorado 144 since it opened 15 months ago 
have encouraged at least one other business to locate in town.

"Log Lane Village saw an opportunity - it saw that it would be 
beneficial," Pearson said. "People who were fearful that it was going 
to cause problems have had a year to see how we've done."

Dave Sanders, a manager at Ruffrano's Hell's Kitchen Pizza in Manitou 
Springs, said business has definitely gone up since the recreational 
marijuana shops opened at the east end of town.

Many of his new customers are tourists, seeking a New York pie to go 
with their Colorado high.

"If you're going to get stoned and walk around - this is the place to 
do it," Sanders said, gesturing out the window to Manitou Avenue, 
with its eclectic collection of restaurants, bars, and crafts and 
knickknack shops. "It's keeping Manitou weird."

Business opportunity

The business opportunities from the world of legal pot can spread to 
neighboring communities. Linda Allen runs Js!, a "weed-friendly" 
overnight accommodation in Greeley that she lists on home rental site Airbnb.

She credits her proximity to Garden City and its pot shops for her 
ability to run a viable business in a city that doesn't permit pot sales.

"If they don't have some place to buy it, they aren't going to come," 
Allen said.

Jeff Wells, city manager for Fort Morgan, conceded that the city's 
restaurants see extra business from those riding Interstate 76 and 
popping into Log Lane Village for marijuana. They find no place in 
the small town to eat.

Chapin, Vail's mayor, said forgoing tax revenue is never an easy 
decision for any community, and the Town Council made the topic a 
"major part of the discussion" before deciding to outlaw pot shops.

The driving force behind the ban, Chapin said, was the recognition 
that protection of Vail's brand as a worldwide ski vacation 
destination had to be paramount.

"The Vail brand is a very valuable brand, and a lot of that brand is 
families," the mayor said. "We weighed the value of that (potential) 
tax revenue against the value of the brand."

Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers said his city, which allows 
medical marijuana businesses, had to consider the strong military 
presence in the Springs and what kind of impact legal recreational 
pot sales could have on that image and those relationships.

Kevin Hawes, who owns Unique Embroidery and Engraving in Fort Morgan, 
said he couldn't be happier that there aren't any marijuana shops 
alongside his store on Main Street.

"I don't think, as a downtown, that's what we want to offer," he 
said. "It's just not the image that I like."

Fort Morgan's residents sent a "fairly overwhelming message" through 
three public hearings and three public forums that they didn't want 
pot shops in town, Wells said. The City Council listened, he said.

Even in the smaller towns that do allow them, the cannabis industry 
isn't given complete free rein. Either a cap has been put in place or 
buffer zones limit how many storefronts there can be.

Manitou Springs made sure that its two stores - the maximum for the 
town of 5,200 - were more than a mile from the tourist-trodden 
downtown district.

"We said from the beginning that we can't let (recreational pot) 
define us - we can't let this jeopardize our bread and butter, which 
is our historic downtown," Snyder said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom