Pubdate: Sun, 13 Oct 2013 Source: Vail Daily (CO) Copyright: 2013 Vail Daily Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/wo3Ts7AI Website: http://www.vaildaily.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3233 Authors: Barbara Allen, Buddy Sims TURN THIS DISASTER AROUND Eagle County second-home owners: This letter is to notify second-home owners of a Land Use Regulation 4476 that will be passed by our Board of Commissioners on Oct. 29 at 10 a.m. at the Eagle County Building. This regulation will approve retail marijuana establishments for unincorporated Eagle County - that is Eagle-Vail, Edwards, Dotsero and El Jebel. The new state laws define these new businesses as a retail marijuana store, a marijuana products facility, a marijuana cultivation facility and a marijuana testing facility. After Jan. 1, numerous retail marijuana stores will be selling 1/4 ounce of marijuana (about 40 joints) to anyone over 21 years old producing a passport or out-of-state driver's license. There are 22,679 out-of-state Eagle County property tax account record addresses that include an estimated 16,000 second-home owners owning one or more properties. Most out-of-state owners are not eligible to vote in elections. Of the over 52,000 residents, you are a huge non-voting percentage; however, your opinion to the Board of Commissioners does count as a vote. Last November, 14,603 county residents voted for retail marijuana and 7,307 voted against pot in our county. This vote will affect your vacation home. We request you fax, call, email, write letters to the Board of Commissioners, Vail Daily newspaper or attend the Board of Commissioners meeting to protest the passage of this Land Use Regulation 4476 zoning regulation. Vail and Beaver Creek resorts will become the first ski resorts in the world in close proximity where legal recreational marijuana can be sold to the public. Our families did not move to the valley to live next to drug dealers in our neighborhoods. We attended the Eagle County Planning Commission meeting on Oct. 2, where they moved the marijuana cultivation facilities to agriculture land but added marijuana social clubs to the land use regulation so pot smokers would have a place to legally smoke. The Planning Commission, in public, estimated over 300,000 pot smoking tourists the first winter and over $337,000 in revenue for the county. Further, it was estimated this will add around 2,000 pot smoking tourists per day on our county roads and ski lifts. It is against both state and federal law to smoke pot in public, on ski lifts, in moving vehicles, on federal land, or in county buildings. If no action is taken by second homeowners to help turn this disaster around, then expect these drug dealers to influence your lives forever. At this time, the only chance to stop this madness is to change the public opinion in our valley and the minds of our three County Commissioners before Oct. 29. Addresses follow for your consideration. We request your support before Oct. 29. Contact the Eagle County commissioners by e-mail at or through County Planning at by phone at 970-328-8605, by fax at 970-328-8629, or via snail mail to PO Box 850, 500 Broadway, Eagle, CO 81631-0850. Contact the Vail Daily newspaper at through Letters to Editor at or by snail mail at PO Box 81, Vail, CO 81658. Barbara Allen Edwards Buddy Sims Edwards - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom