Pubdate: Sat, 09 Apr 2016
Source: Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
Copyright: 2016 Sun-Sentinel Company
Contact: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sfl-letters-to-the-editor-htmlstory.html
Website: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/159
Author: David Kelly, Special to Tribune Newspapers

POT SALES HEAL WOES OF COLO. TOWN

Things Looked Bleak When Oil Prices Dropped

DeBEQUE, Colo. - When the oil and gas industry tanked and plans for 
gambling fizzled out, this conservative town of ranchers and 
roughnecks found salvation in an unlikely place. Weed. "We are going 
to survive by it," said Darrel Kuhn, who owns the local liquor store, 
"because we sure as hell can't survive without it." Hemay be right. 
Colorado's billion-dollar marijuana industry has boosted the 
economies of many struggling towns. Empire, Trinidad and Parachute 
have all benefited from infusions of pot money.

But DeBeque, on Colorado's Western Slope, owes its very existence to 
the cannabis trade.

For generations, oil and gas money paved the roads, built the schools 
and beautified the parks in this townof 500 along the Colorado River. 
But over the last few years, plummeting fuel prices have reduced 
those revenues from a high of $260,000 annually to around $17,000.

"We needed to supplant that loss with something else," said Lance 
Stewart, the town administrator. "Otherwise we would have dissolved 
as a town into Mesa County."

Plans to introduce casinos fizzled and the famous wild horses in the 
surrounding tablelands couldn't draw enough tourism to dent the deficit.

The balance sheet looked increasingly bleak. So in June 2014, after a 
contentious debate, DeBeque voted 69 to 65 to become the first 
community in the county to open its doors to marijuana grow houses 
and recreational pot shops.

Town clerk ShirleyNichols was skeptical, but a trip to a Denver 
dispensary changed her mind.

"I expected to see people laying on the ground, but it was the 
cleanest place on the block," she said. "So I lost some of my reservations."

JimRoberts, a former gas plant operator in DeBeque, was mining for 
gold in Northern California when he got the news.

"I was literally in the water with a gold dredge when I heard about 
it," he said.

He hopped in his car and headed back to Colorado. Driving along 
Interstate 70 in DeBeque, he spotted a truck stop for rent, made a 
call and opened Kush Gardens a few months later, the first 
recreational dispensary inMesa County.

Ona recent morning, cars streamed off the highway and into the 
parking lot. Heavily armed security guards with dogs patrolled the 
perimeter. Inside, customers loaded up on weed.

"This is a rare situation," said Roberts, maneuvering through the 
crowded store. "Our sales are some of the best in the state. People 
in Denver even look enviously on them."

Roberts, 30, grew up in DeBeque and knows many initially opposed his business.

"Now that the tax dollars are coming in, I think they have changed 
their minds," he said. "Dollar per dollar, the impact we are having 
is much stronger here."

A mile away, Elk Mountain Trading Post was also thriving, with 
patrons stopping in from as far away as France and Spain. Even more 
came from Utah about an hour west of here.

Randy and Suzanne Sheley built Elk Mountain by hand.

"Many locals were afraid of crime and people hanging out," Randy 
Sheley said. "But we got to know them, and they saw that most of our 
customers are older people with money. The turnaround in their 
attitude has been amazing."

Their store is a laid-back, artsy place with bearskins adorning the 
walls along with jewelry made of elk teeth.

A pair of moose antlers sits at the reception desk.

Suzanne Sheley said God led them into this business as a way of 
offering healing to others.

"Randy is in the Knights of Columbus, and I am in the Women's 
Auxiliary," she said. "We're not a bunch of drug dealers." More like 
cash cows. DeBeque is now collecting a 5 percent local excise tax on 
each shop, racking up $340,000 in revenue last year. That makes up 
for the lost petroleum dollars and then some. The dispensaries also 
pay a 15 percent state tax.

"In a year or so we are hoping our grow facilities will generate even 
more money," Stewart said. "I have heard the $1 million figure 
bandied about, but I think that's optimistic."

The question nowis how to spend the windfall.

The community center got a new floor and air conditioning. City 
streets are being repaired. Sewers will be fixed. Curbs and gutters 
are getting replaced. And pot money is being set aside for 
scholarships at the high school.

But DeBeque isn't any chances.

It hopes to sock away perhaps a quarter of its cash in a savings 
account should pot go bust or if other Mesa County towns open 
recreational dispensaries, breaking up DeBeque's current monopoly.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom