Pubdate: Wed, 09 Feb 2011
Source: Summit Daily News (CO)
Copyright: 2011 Summit Daily News
Contact: http://apps.summitdaily.com/forms/letter/index.php
Website: http://www.summitdaily.com/home.php
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/587
Author: Caddie Nath
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?277 (Cannabis - Medicinal -  Colorado)

BRECKENRIDGE BANS LARGE POT HOME-GROW OPERATIONS

Town Council Limits Residential Growing to 12 Plants

BRECKENRIDGE - The Breckenridge Town Council unanimously adopted an 
ordinance Tuesday restricting the growing of medical marijuana in 
private homes following the discovery of four residential grow 
operations and a letter from a 13-year-old local boy complaining 
about the smell of marijuana in his neighborhood.

Under the new ordinance, no more than 12 marijuana plants can be 
cultivated in a private residence in Breckenridge. Also, grow 
operations must be in compliance with all existing building codes, 
and the marijuana cannot be perceptible in any way, including by 
smell, outside the residence.

Violators of the ordinance will face separate misdemeanor criminal 
charges for every day any portion of the ordinance is violated.

A health and safety risk Amateur marijuana-growing operations out of 
private homes are often set up with systems, equipment and chemicals 
that present significant fire and safety hazards, Breckenridge Police 
Chief Rick Holman and chief building official Glen Morgan told the 
council at Tuesday's meeting.

In the past six months, Breckenridge authorities have discovered four 
large grow operations in private houses in town, the biggest of which 
housed more than 200 small plants. Three of the four growing 
operations have now been shut down.

"Typically, what we find is not something like an herb garden," 
Holman said. "These are pretty extensive ... It's truly a health, 
safety and quality of life issue."

Morgan and Holman said they were concerned about fire risks from 
unsecured wires in rooms often wrapped in flammable plastic to 
enhance lighting for the plants, as well as mold in the humid grow 
rooms and explosive chemicals sometimes used to draw THC from the plants.

The marijuana grown in one of the Breckenridge homes was being 
cultivated by a caregiver for several licensed medical marijuana 
users who lived on the Front Range.

In at least two of the four home-growing operations discovered in the 
last six months, the medical marijuana could be smelled outside the 
house, and in three of the cases renters were growing the marijuana 
without the knowledge or approval of the landlord - which is now 
prohibited by the ordinance.

"In a weird way, this ordinance might even facilitate the landlord 
saying yes," Breckenridge Mayor John Warner said at Tuesday's 
meeting. "Because you have regulations and it will be done properly."

The Breck regs The ordinance restricts residential medical marijuana 
cultivation in Breckenridge to the letter of state constitutional 
law. Amendment 20 to the Colorado Constitution, approved by voters in 
2000, allows patients licensed to use marijuana for medical purposes 
and one live-in caregiver to each grow six plants out of their home 
for private use.

The new ordinance allows up to 12 marijuana plants to be grown within 
a 100 square-foot contiguous space in a private residence as long as 
they are not in any way perceptible outside the house and are not 
accessible to anyone without a medical marijuana license.

The measure gives the Breckenridge police the right to enter 
residences in town where medical marijuana is grown during 
"reasonable hours" to inspect the house for compliance with the 
occupant or landowner's permission or with an inspection warrant 
issued by a judge.

The home-grown marijuana issue was first raised in December, after 
the council received the letter from the Breckenridge teenager, who 
asked that his name not be printed

The letter explained his frustration with marijuana in his community, 
from the smell on the gondola to the neighborhoods where children live.

The boy's neighbor, who was growing pot residentially, had an exhaust 
system that blew the marijuana smell near the boy's front door. The 
boy said he got tired of the smell and finally wrote the letter to council.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom