SMOKE SCREENING: City lawmakers mull pot shop regulations

AURORA | Aurora voters across the city largely approved Amendment 64, which legalizes recreational marijuana and gives cities the option to allow or prohibit commercial marijuana sales, precinct-by-precinct 2012 election results show. Aurora voters in all six wards approved the ballot question, 56.5 percent to 43.4 percent.

Despite the majority, Aurora City Council members are trying to decide whether to temporarily and possibly permanently ban marijuana retailers within city limits — a move that could prevent the city from earning up to $2.5 million in annual marijuana retail revenue.

Voters in only 24 of 179 total Aurora precincts opposed Amendment 64. Returns show that neighborhoods in the north and central parts of Aurora voted by a large majority to support the measure, while neighborhoods in the southern, more conservative parts of Aurora narrowly voted the measure down. However, the measure passed in all of Aurora’s six wards.

Amendment 64 allows a person 21 years old and older to possess limited amounts of marijuana, and it also permits local governments to regulate or prohibit marijuana businesses, including cultivation facilities and retail stores. Since Amendment 64 involved two parts — the allowance of recreational marijuana and commercial marijuana -— it’s impossible to know how Aurora residents would have voted if the ballot initiative was separated into two questions.

Yet recreational marijuana advocates say city lawmakers should recognize that constituents voted in support of the bill as a whole, and move swiftly to allow marijuana retailers in the city.

“In places like Aurora, we feel the voters spoke loudly and said they want to take marijuana sales off the streets and tax them,” said Brian Vicente, an attorney and executive director of Sensible Colorado, a marijuana advocacy group that led the campaign to support Amendment 64. “It could generate a lot of money and put a lot of jobs in the community, and that’s what elected officials should be working on right now.”

But city officials say they’re taking their time to weed through the pot law and make the right decisions about business licensing for marijuana stores. Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan said city lawmakers are interested to see what marijuana business regulations the state Legislature puts forward by July 1. Hogan said the commercial marijuana side of Amendment 64 won’t be implemented overnight, neither locally nor statewide.

“Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way,” he said.

Aurora is also considering a temporary moratorium on marijuana retailers so it can have enough time to draft business licensing regulations that are appropriate for marijuana stores, he said. That decision is supposed to be made sometime in April.

“There’s some discussion about a temporary opt-out, just so that we can have enough time to make the decisions that need to be made,” he said.

A breakdown of voter results in each city ward shows voters overwhelmingly approved Amendment 64 in the November 2012 election in most Aurora neighborhoods.

All 14 precincts in Ward I voted to approve the measure. Ward I includes neighborhoods in north Aurora and the Anschutz Medical Campus. The measure passed by a margin of 66 percent to 34 percent, or by about 3,000 votes.

The measure passed in Ward II by a margin of 58 percent to 42 percent, or by about 3,200 votes. Ward II includes the neighborhoods around Buckley Air Force Base and Plains Conservation Center, and much of eastern Aurora to Watkins. Precinct 344, which includes neighborhoods at South Conservatory Parkway and around the Plains Conservation Center, was the only one of the ward’s 31 precincts where voters opposed the initiative, by 51.7 percent.

In Ward III, the initiative passed 60 percent to 40 percent, or about 3,800 votes. Only one precinct voted to oppose the measure, narrowly. Ward III has a total of 30 precincts and is bounded north by 6th Avenue, East Mississippi Avenue south and Airport Boulevard to the east. A pocket of neighborhoods near the intersection of South Sable Boulevard and East Tennessee Drive voted overwhelmingly — 71 percent — in support of the initiative.

In Ward IV, only three of 31 precincts voted against the bill. The initiative passed in that ward by a margin of 57 percent to 43 percent, or by about 3,400 votes.

Ward IV includes neighborhoods around the Cherry Creek State Park, and along Interstate 225 from South Parker Road to East Mississippi Avenue. The neighborhoods in precinct 438, including the neighborhoods of Steeplerun and South East Commons, including the voters along East Evans Drive and East Evans Avenue, opposed the initiative by the largest margin in that ward — 55 percent to 45 percent, a difference of about 70 votes.

In Ward V, eight of 40 precincts opposed the measure, but it still passed in that ward by a margin of 54 percent to 46 percent, or by about 2,500 votes. The Heather Gardens neighborhood opposed the measure. Voters around Meadowood Kindergarten and a pocket of neighborhoods along South Parker Road between East Chenango Avenue and East Belleview Avenue also opposed the measure.

In Ward VI, the measure passed by a narrower margin of 52 percent to 48 percent, or by about 1,300 votes. Eleven of 33 precincts in the ward opposed the measure. Ward VI includes much of south Aurora and the neighborhoods around the Arapahoe County Fairgrounds, Quincy Reservoir and Aurora Reservoir. The Saddle Rock neighborhood voted against the measure, but only narrowly. The Tallyn’s Reach neighborhood also voted against the measure. The precinct with the largest voter opposition was precinct 326, which includes the Heritage Eagle Bend neighborhood. That precinct opposed the measure by 66 percent to 34 percent, or by about 400 votes.

Reach reporter Sara Castellanos at 720-449-9036 or sara@aurorasentinel.com. 

Taxing questions

City officials say they’re hesitant about regulating marijuana sales 

Marijuana could bring as much as $2.5 million in annual sales tax revenues and business licensing fees to city coffers, city budget officials say.

Aurora City Council’s Amendment 64 Policy Committee will take that into consideration when they decide at an April meeting whether to temporarily ban marijuana retailers in the city.

The estimated revenue from marijuana stores could add to the current annual city budget of about $555 million.

“It’s a significant amount of tax revenue that could come into Aurora’s coffers,” said Brian Vicente, an attorney and the director of Sensible Colorado, a marijuana advocacy group. “Currently, that money is going into the black market. The local legislators should decide (if) they want to capture that revenue and take it out of the hands of gangs or leave it on the streets.”

Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan said the revenue estimates are substantial but the city still needs time to draft business licensing regulations. That’s why city officials are considering a temporary moratorium on marijuana retailers.

“It’s a lot of money, but it’s important that (regulations) be done correctly,” he said. “I would rather be part of a process that does it right and then gets to take advantage of what’s been done right, rather than do something quickly … and find out we did something wrong and either have to start over or end up in court or something else.”

City lawmakers are finding themselves in a time crunch because Aurora has to decide whether to ban, temporarily ban or allow the commercial sale of marijuana within its city limits by July 1. That’s also the deadline for the state Legislature to adopt regulations for marijuana retail establishments. Hogan said city officials would like to wait and see what the state business licensing regulations are before deciding on whether the city should pass its own set of regulations.

Amendment 64, which passed Nov. 6, legalizes up to 1 oz. of marijuana for recreational use for people over the age of 21, and also allows anyone over that age to grow up to six plants in their home.

The state has until July 1 to draft licensing regulations, but local municipalities can also draft their own licensing regulations for four types of medical marijuana businesses: marijuana cultivation facilities, marijuana product manufacturing facilities, marijuana testing facilities and retail marijuana stores.

City budget officials in a presentation to an Aurora City Council policy committee March 19 estimated marijuana retail revenues under three different zoning areas: zoning for liquor stores, pawn shops and sexually-oriented businesses.

Budget officials estimated the city would earn the largest amount of sales tax revenue — up to $2.5 million — if it regulated marijuana retailers like liquor stores.

Some marijuana advocates say the city should only choose to regulate marijuana retailers like liquor stores because the entire Amendment 64 campaign last year was directed at legalizing marijuana like alcohol.

“The intent of the initiative was to regulate the production and sale of marijuana in a way similar to alcohol, and that’s what we would expect to see,” said Mason Tvert, who was co-director of the Amendment 64 campaign last year and is now the director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project.

Liquor stores are required to be about 2,000-feet apart from each other, and budget officials assumed there would be about 80 marijuana retailers in the city under that model.

If marijuana businesses were regulated like pawnshops, which are required to be two miles away from each other, the city would receive an estimated $912,000 annually according to budget officials. Budget officials assumed there would be about 17 marijuana retailers under that model. If marijuana stores were located only in industrial areas, there would be about six retailers and the city would earn about $322,000.

To base their estimates, the city’s budget officials used sales tax collections from medical marijuana sales in Denver, Colorado Springs, and Boulder.

Jason Batchelor, the city’s finance director, said it was difficult to project sales tax collections from recreational marijuana because there’s no precedent for that type of business, and a lack of history and data.