Pubdate: Sun, 07 Feb 2016
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2016 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: David Migoya

POT'S PAPER TRAIL IS COSTLY

Learning Who Owns Colorado's Marijuana Businesses Is Not Easy.

Colorado's marijuana business owners-nearly 1,200 of them-control a 
quickly growing and powerful industry that is approaching $1 billion 
in annual sales.

Yet basic information about these entrepreneurs is not available to 
the public without paying hefty fees, in contrast to what is 
available about owners of other state-licensed businesses.

The Marijuana Enforcement Division of the Colorado Department of 
Revenue will disclose the names of those with ownership interests in 
more than 2,500 active medical and recreational marijuana licenses 
issued since 2014.

But the agency will not provide a list that connects owners with 
their businesses-information it has provided to The Denver Post in 
the past - or disclose the size of their ownership stakes, what kinds 
of marijuana licenses they hold and how many businesses they own. In 
response to several public-information requests from The Post, the 
state said it would provide that information one name at a time at a 
total cost of about $10,000.

And information about any state disciplinary actions against a 
marijuana business is available only by paying the state hundreds of 
additional dollars in fees.

"This is not supposed to be secret," said Larisa Bolivar, executive 
director of Cannabis Consumers Coalition, an advocacy group. "They 
are giving licenses for a public business, and we have a right to 
know who owns them."

The same details about the owners of dozens of other state-licensed 
industries and occupations in Colorado and any discipline meted out 
to them-from liquor stores and automobile dealers to acupuncturists 
and veterinarians - is available on request or on the state's various websites.

For each, the public can learn-often at no cost - the name of a 
business owner or licensee, any infractions they allegedly committed 
and any penalty the state regulating authority has issued.

"There doesn't seem to be a sound rationale in this denial of 
information," said Sen. John Kefalas, D-Fort Collins. "If you can 
have (disclosure) for other licensees in other professions, it's a 
contradiction not to do it for this."

Revenue Director Barbara Brohl at first denied The Post's request for 
the names of pot-business owners, calling them "individualized data" 
that were protected by law from disclosure.

"We are really required to maintain the confidentiality of ... 
individualized data information that is provided to us by a 
licensee," Brohl told The Post.

Officials eventually released a list of owner names to The Post 
without any additional information about them. They said their 
computer system does not store owners' names matched with addresses 
and business names, and that court rulings protect them from having 
to create a new record to fulfill such a request.

The state said it would provide ownership information on a 
person-by-person basis for all 1,188 people by charging $30 per hour 
to review each eight-page license application, blacken out 
information it says is protected from disclosure and assess a copy 
fee for each page.

At a half-hour per owner - the amount it took the department to 
process one application for The Post-the total cost would be more than $20,000.

Revenue officials later changed their estimate, saying the 
information The Post sought could be found on two pages of the 
application, cutting the time it would take to review the paperwork 
and copies and reducing the cost to about $10,000.

"This makes very little sense and is hardly useful," said Jeffrey 
Roberts, executive director of the Colorado Freedom of Information 
Coalition. "The cost is clearly prohibitive. How are journalists and 
the public expected to examine records and make any kind of 
assessment of whether a systemis working or not? It's just remarkable."

Other states give info

Basic information on marijuana-business ownership is available free 
from Oregon and Washington, the other states where recreational 
marijuana sales are legal, spokesmen in those states confirmed.

The city of Denver provided The Post complete ownership information 
about each of the city's 633 marijuana licenses within 48 hours of 
the paper's request-computerized and at no cost.

A preliminary analysis of Denver's data shows a half-dozen people 
control a third of the marijuana licenses issued by the city, while 
owning just 10 percent of the marijuana businesses there. A business 
can hold more than one license for various types and locations of 
marijuana-related operations ranging from grows to manufacturing and retail.

The state in 2013 provided The Post with a computer database of the 
owners behind each medical marijuana business in the state, data it 
says it cannot and will not provide today. The cost: $0.

Colorado regulators say a bill Gov. John Hickenlooper signed into law 
last year prevents them from disclosing anything more than the name 
of a licensed marijuana business and its owners. SB15-115 broadly 
amended the state's medical marijuana laws and, regulators said, 
added a catch phrase that causes the secrecy.

Although each license application contains personal details- an 
owner's home address, phone numbers, Social Security number and date 
of birth among them - the law says the state may not release any 
"individualized data" about a licensee. That would include their 
answers to application questions about any criminal history or how 
much of an ownership stake they hold in the licensed business.

State analysis preceding the passage of the bill indicates it was to 
protect information such as credit card histories and personal references.

One of the two legislators behind the bill, Rep. Dan Pabon, D-Denver, 
said the intent was to protect the disclosure of "sensitive 
information," and that included the identities of who is licensed to 
grow, sell, distribute and manufacture marijuana products here.

The owners and investors of other licensed businesses such as liquor 
stores undergo the same background checks and submit nearly the same 
information as the marijuana applicants, records show. State laws do 
not restrict disclosing information about those businesses.

Colorado publishes the names and locations of businesses that are 
licensed to grow, sell and distribute marijuana products, on the 
state marijuana enforcement division's website. But it offers only a 
corporate name, not the people behind it.

State relies on case law

The state says its computer system cannot combine the list of 
licensed marijuana businesses with the list of names of those who own 
them. And even though it had provided a similar computerized list to 
The Post in the past, the state now points to a pair of Colorado 
Supreme Court decisions dating back decades to support why it doesn't have to.

In one, the court decided the state's court systemis not required to 
manipulate computer-generated data in a way that allows the public to 
see it. Notably, the 1999 decision deals with the state's courts 
system and criminal-justice records that are not a part of Colorado's 
Open Records Act.

The court held in the second case, decided in 1988, that the 
government had no duty to alter a record in such a way that it would 
create a new one that could be disclosed under the open-records law.

"CORA does not require an agency (to) create a record just for the 
purposes of creating a record someone wants to see in a particular 
manner, or manipulate data in away somebody would like to see it," 
Brohl said. "It's pretty clear that ... CORA is not going to require 
us to create a record that doesn't currently exist."

The open-records act allows agencies to charge a fee to perform such 
a manipulation of data.

An effort is underway to have legislation introduced in the upcoming 
session that would clarify how the state's openrecords law addresses 
computerized records and what can be charged for them.

"When you charge that much money for public records, it essentially 
makes them not public," said Roberts, of the Colorado Freedom of 
Information Coalition. "It has a chilling effect on people making 
requests. This is not meant to be a revenue stream."

To learn which marijuana businesses have faced state discipline- and 
to see the state enforcement division's final decision in those cases 
- - the agency charges additional fees.

The Post asked to reviewdisciplinary actions in 27 instances in the 
past year-including a $135,000 fine issued against a marijuana 
ownership group for inspection failures. The agency wanted $1,015 
before it would release the information. Then, if The Post wished to 
review the paperwork at a state office, it would be another 
$30-per-hour charge.

"These are limited licenses for very lucrative businesses; they're 
like a signed check. Most non-profits or citizens could not afford 
that expense," Bolivar, of Cannabis Consumers Coalition, said about 
the state's fees for information regarding marijuana business owners.

"There is no other reason than the state trying to make money," she 
said. "What a shakedown."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom