Pubdate: Sun, 03 Apr 2016
Source: New Mexican, The (Santa Fe, NM)
Copyright: 2016 The Santa Fe New Mexican
Contact:  http://www.santafenewmexican.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/695
Author: Daniel J. Chacon

HIGH HOPES FOR MARIJUANA MINI-MALL

Just north of the New Mexico state line, developers plan to turn 
Trinidad, Colo., center into a one-stop shop for pot tourism

On the first day the state of Colorado allowed the sale of 
recreational marijuana, Chris Elkins waited two hours in the freezing 
cold to buy weed.

"The line was down the stairwells, down the sidewalks, around the 
buildings, down the street," Elkins, who had traveled to Colorado 
from Arkansas for a long-planned ski trip, recalled about that New 
Year's Day in 2014.

"We're all just standing out in the cold, shaking," he said.

As Elkins braved the winter weather with scores of stoners, the 
budding businessman saw an opportunity to cash in.

"Being an entrepreneur, I recognized that there's going to be plenty 
of sales in this industry," he said. "People are going to need to 
expand - that's a difficult thing to do - and I took it upon myself 
to jump in the industry at that time."

More than two years after that fateful day, Elkins and his business 
partner, Sean Sheridan, are making a run for the Colorado border.

The two commercial real estate developers are pushing a plan to open 
what they've dubbed the "World's First Pot Mini-Mall" with five 
marijuana stores operating side by side under the same roof in 
downtown Trinidad, an old coal mining town some 12 miles north of the 
New Mexico state line.

Betting that cannabis users will travel near and far to experience 
the new Rocky Mountain high, Elkins and Sheridan aim to bring 
Colorado's cash crop closer to New Mexico and other neighboring 
states where recreational marijuana is illegal. And with Interstate 
25 running through the middle of Trinidad, the southern gateway to 
the Colorado Rockies, Elkins and Sheridan expect to capture a 
never-ending flow of new and repeat customers.

"I think it would be silly to ignore the fact that we're just north 
of the border," Sheridan said. "It's a huge factor in the equation."

Sheridan and Elkins say their plan would help rejuvenate Trinidad, 
which has lost nearly 10 percent of its population in recent years 
and has struggled to recover from the economic downturn. Empty 
storefronts dot the city's quiet downtown, where Victorian buildings 
line the red brick-paved streets. At the "temporarily" closed Fox 
Theatre on Main Street, The Art of Murder, a movie released in 1999, 
remains on the marquee.

The city already has eight pot stores in business, including a big 
dispensary right off the freeway next to Wal-Mart, and dozens more 
that have the "legal right" to obtain a local license, although city 
officials don't expect them all to open.

The existing stores are tourist magnets. On a recent day in Trinidad, 
there were automobiles with license plates from New Mexico, Oklahoma, 
Kansas and Texas parked outside the pot shops.

"We're on our way to Denver and figured we'd stop in the first city 
we could to see what all the fuss is about," said a white-haired man 
driving a white pickup with Texas license plates. The man declined to 
give his name, saying he didn't want anyone to know he smokes marijuana.

The pot smoker is among thousands of motorists who drive through 
Trinidad on any given day. According to the Colorado Department of 
Transportation, an average of 9,200 vehicles cross the border between 
Trinidad and New Mexico on I-25 daily.

"The flow of traffic from the south into southern Colorado is 
consistent, and it's high volume," said Elkins, who is now a resident 
of Trinidad. "There's a lot of tourists, so the market is huge."

In real estate, they say "location, location, location" is key, and 
Elkins and Sheridan are betting the adage will prove true.

"We believe that [marijuana distributors] are anxious to be in 
Trinidad because it's going to be the first place for people from New 
Mexico to buy marijuana," Sheridan said.

Legal marijuana, that is. Pot remains an illegal drug and Schedule 1 
controlled substance under the eyes of the federal government, but 
the Obama administration has mostly looked the other way as an 
increasing number of states have approved it for recreational or 
medicinal uses within their borders.

Trinidad, a sleepy little city founded in 1861, developed as a 
trading center on the Santa Fe Trail, a place where weary travelers 
could stop and rest before making the trek over Raton Pass.

When the railroad arrived in the 1870s, the city became a cattle and 
ranching hub until coal mining took off in the late 1880s, an 
industry that fueled and maintained Trinidad's growth for decades to come.

Around the 1970s, after a local doctor started to perform the first 
of thousands of sex-reassignment surgeries, Trinidad was dubbed the 
Sex-Change Capital of the World, a title that defined it for decades.

The city suffered a major blow last year when its largest employer, 
oil and gas producer Pioneer Natural Resources, laid off dozens of workers.

"As a result of the global fluctuations in natural resource 
industries, primarily coal and natural gas, Trinidad saw a 
reorientation with jobs either being eliminated or relocated as a 
result," Jonathan Taylor, the city's economic development director, 
wrote in an email. "According to the U.S. Census, Trinidad has lost 
an estimated 9.9 percent of its population between 2010 and 2014."

At least four of the existing pot shops in the city moved into what 
used to be empty buildings, and Elkins and Sheridan believe marijuana 
could spark an economic boom in the city.

"The cannabis industry is perfect for not only revitalizing the 
infrastructure in downtown Trinidad but just bringing in more dollars 
for the citizens," Sheridan said.

Trinidad Mayor Phil Rico did not return repeated messages seeking comment.

Trinidad City Manager Gabriel Engeland said legal marijuana has 
already breathed new life into downtown.

"One of the goals of council was to rehab and make usable the 
buildings again and bring tenants again," he said. "Retail marijuana, 
at least in these instances, has done that. I think that there's the 
potential that it could be a catalyst. It's just too soon to tell if 
the fuse is going down to a big boom or if the fuse is going down to a fizzle."

While city officials are trying to transform Trinidad into an arts 
destination, Elkins and Sheridan want it to be known as the most 
marijuana-friendly city in the world, an idea that some residents and 
elected officials aren't eager to embrace.

"I'm not comfortable with any more marijuana stores. I think we have 
enough," said former Trinidad Mayor Joe Reorda, 81.

"We used to be called the Sex-Change Capital of the Nation. Now we're 
going to be called the Marijuana Capital of the Nation," he said. "I 
don't know which is worse."

Others are less concerned about capitalizing on the marijuana industry.

"Personally, it doesn't really bother me one way or another," author 
and local historian Dean Sneed said.

"It's always been here," Sneed said, referring to marijuana. "Might 
as well tax it and make some money off of it."

The city has already seen a 15 percent increase in tourism dollars 
since the sale of recreational pot became legal in Colorado, though 
city officials say it's difficult to know exactly how much is tied to 
marijuana.

"We are all making the assumption that the tourism increase, a good 
portion of it, is due to marijuana," Engeland said. "We just don't 
know what portion."

The recreational and medical marijuana industry is booming in 
Colorado. Last year, marijuana stores throughout the state sold 
nearly $1 billion worth of cannabis.

Reorda said he supports the legalization of recreational marijuana 
but is concerned that allowing too many dispensaries in Trinidad 
could hurt the eight existing marijuana stores.

The proposed pot mini-mall on North Commercial Street in downtown 
Trinidad is a large building with five separate suites that Elkins 
and Sheridan plan to rent out.

To put it bluntly, Elkins and Sheridan will be landlords to licensed 
pot dealers.

"We've leased out all five suites to dispensary operators," Elkins 
said. "We've got a large operator right now that is moving through 
the process. They should be up and running - don't quote me on this - 
but in a couple of months."

Sheridan predicts each tenant will generate $4 million to $6 million 
annually in gross sales.

"If they're not doing $5 million a year, then we're not driving 
enough traffic," he said.

Elkins and Sheridan's initial proposal called for clearing out the 
entire building and setting up several kiosk-style stores, the 
majority of which would be marijuana distributors.

"Ultimately, we had to compromise with the city on what is realistic 
and what makes sense for this area of town," Elkins said. "We decided 
to do away with the maximum density plan and go to the minimum 
density plan because we think it suits the area better."

Elkins and Sheridan are taking advantage of Trinidad's zero-setback 
rule, which allows marijuana stores to be located side by side, 
unlike Denver, for example, which prohibits stores within 1,000 feet 
of each other.

Two retail marijuana stores are already operating in the same block 
as the proposed pot mini-mall. Just a few doors away is a marijuana 
store called The Spot 420, where a security guard carries a loaded 9 
mm handgun on his belt, and across the street is another pot shop 
called M&M Distributing, where workers were too busy dealing with 
customers on a recent weekday to talk to The New Mexican.

Engeland, the city manager, said Elkins and Sheridan have already 
received a conditional use permit from the city's planning and zoning 
office to operate five individual retail marijuana dispensaries.

While the city council and the state of Colorado still must grant 
licensing approval for each store, "planning and zoning is actually 
the major hurdle here because once you get to council, it's pretty 
straightforward," Engeland said.

"Currently, we have 35 [marijuana stores] that will have the legal 
right to establish a retail marijuana dispensary," he added. "Of 
those 35, we don't anticipate all 35 are going forward. Plans change."

Alixx Rose, manager of the Faragosi Farms marijuana dispensary on 
Santa Fe Trail, said she's not sure whether there's enough business 
to support more stores.

"People will hear about the mini-mall, and that's going to be 
exciting, so we'll probably have a rush," she said. "But then it's 
going to taper off, and then we're all going to be sharing the same 
amount of people."

Rose estimates that more than half of her customers are from out of state.

"The people from out of town tend to hit as many stores as they can, 
at least until they get the legal amount that they can carry," she said.

Non-Colorado residents are allowed to purchase only 7 grams of 
marijuana at a time, she said.

"You can carry an ounce while you're in the state," Rose said. "You 
just have to buy it in four different transactions because the laws are silly."

Rose said the demand from out-of-state visitors is huge.

"People ask us all the time if they can just buy more and more and 
more," she said as an older couple driving a white minivan with 
Oklahoma license plates shopped for marijuana-infused chocolates and 
other edibles. "We send them to other stores."

Under Elkins and Sheridan's plan, pot tourists would be able to park 
outside the so-called pot mini-mall and walk from store to store.

A spokesman for the New Mexico State Police said the law enforcement 
agency had no position or opinion on recreational marijuana 
legalization in Colorado. But Sgt. Chad Pierce said state troopers 
who patrol the border have been dealing with an increase in 
marijuana-related incidents since Colorado legalized pot.

"We haven't seen a major increase in the DWI portion of this," he 
said in an email. "However, we did see an increase of personal use 
possession [non-traffic] citations directly after Colorado legalized 
it approximately two years ago. Since then it has remained mostly steady."

Sheridan advises pot tourists to follow rules prohibiting consumption 
in public, which has opened up the market to "420 friendly" hotels 
across Colorado.

"I will be the first one to tell you if you leave my state with weed, 
you're a moron," Sheridan said. "Stay here."

Elkins and Sheridan are anxiously waiting to see how the Trinidad 
City Council votes on the license application of their first tenant. 
A public hearing is scheduled for April 19.

Engeland said the council will consider everything from the 
applicant's business plan to how long they've lived in Colorado.

"Assuming that things like that are in order," he said, "then the 
likelihood of it getting approved is very high."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom