Pubdate: Mon, 05 Nov 2012
Source: Glenwood Springs Post Independent (CO)
Copyright: 2012 Glenwood Springs Post Independent
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/ys97xJAX
Website: http://www.postindependent.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/821
Author: John Colson

TOWN SEEKS TO DEFINE 'COMMUNITY NEED' FOR MEDICAL POT

Two Centers Denied Permits and Have Threatened to Sue

CARBONDALE, Colorado -- Two medical marijuana centers have warned the 
town government they have hired attorneys and may file suit over 
recent rejections of their applications to do business here.

Town officials have expressed concerns about allowing so many medical 
marijuana centers in Carbondale that the town will become a regional 
distribution center.

To prevent that, the trustees are seeking help in determining what 
the community need might be in terms of medical marijuana patients 
and their caregivers.

At the trustees meeting on Oct. 23, town attorney Mark Hamilton 
reported that the two medical marijuana centers in question had asked 
for more time to prepare for their next meeting with the town.

An operating permit for Green Miracle Medicinals, 985 Highway 133, 
was approved by the Board of Trustees on Aug. 28. That approval was 
vacated two weeks later, on Sept. 11, on a motion by Trustee John Foulkrod.

CMED, a medical marijuana center at 615 Buggy Circle, was denied a 
permit to operate in town at a meeting on Oct. 9.

Both centers were ruled to be closer than the 1,000-foot limit from a 
school, as decreed in the municipal code.

But both also were decreed by staff to be grandfathered in, meaning 
they were in business before the town code on medical marijuana 
businesses was enacted, and so were to be permitted to do business.

A majority of the trustees -- Mayor Stacey Bernot and Trustees 
Elizabeth Murphy, Pam Zentmyer and Foulkrod -- ruled that the permits 
should not be granted.

At the Oct. 23 meeting, Bernot called for an assessment of "the needs 
of the community" regarding medical marijuana.

As with liquor licenses, the town's medical marijuana ordinance 
contains a provision allowing for denial of an application if the 
needs of the community have already been met by existing centers.

Town Manager Jay Harrington told the Post Independent on Friday that 
he has talked with a consultant about how to determine the 
community's need, but the matter remains in the talking stage.

"The goal here is to say how many centers we think are necessary to 
meet the community need," Harrington said. "We expect to figure that 
out in the next few weeks."

He said an additional complication may be the outcome of a statewide 
vote on Amendment 64 to the Colorado Constitution, which would make 
marijuana possession legal for all those over 21 years of age in the state.

The effect of passage of Amendment 64 on the medical marijuana 
industry remains an unknown, he said.

The trustees' next discussion of the issue is tentatively scheduled 
for Jan. 8, 2013, Harrington said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom