EDITORIAL: Aurora will lose control of marijuana sales with warehouse zoning and misguided limits

We’re all unsure of just how this legalized marijuana thing is going to play out in Aurora, but Denver’s experience with medical marijuana and fledgling recreational pot legislation is helping to show local lawmakers the best directions to follow and avoid.

A small committee of city lawmakers are exploring Aurora’s options in accommodating state law that legalizes the production, sale and use of marijuana. It’s hard to predict what rules will make it to the city council floor next year as Aurora prepares to open the marijuana market. The committee has only advisory power, and as history has shown, the full city council in informal meetings do the real work.

But two ideas so far are surfacing from this city council panel that the rest of the council should address now: An arbitrary limit on production and retail services, and restricting retail sales to industrial zones in the city.

Both ideas are bad news for business owners, for users and for public safety.

We’ve pointed out before important aspects of retail marijuana issues in the community. There will be plenty of Aurora residents who will be buying and smoking pot as it becomes more readily available. If they don’t buy it here in Aurora, the sales and sales taxes will be lost to other communities, most likely Denver.

If Aurora doesn’t allow for retail sales in the community, it is guaranteed that there will be retail operations that open on the city’s border with Denver and other communities. If Aurora lawmakers have concerns about how these retail shops will affect the surrounding community, lawmakers need to ensure that they allow for convenient operations, or Denver, Arapahoe County and Adams county will be calling the shots as to how these pot shops will run, essentially in Aurora’s back yard.

If Aurora pushes these shops into industrial or warehouse areas, where consumers will be loathe to go, lawmakers virtually guarantee a brisk business on its borders with municipalities that know better.

Even more important, pushing these shops into lonely warehouse districts will almost certainly increase the likelihood of crime, out of the eyes of the public and police. It’s easy to see that if Aurora were to treat liquor stores like it might pot shops, there would be a string of liquor stores along the city’s border, and there would be a string of robberies in Aurora liquor stores forced into remote warehouse districts.

It’s hard to find a compelling reason to keep these shops anywhere other than where retail liquor operations are permitted.

As to an arbitrary cap on these businesses, again, it makes no sense and only serves to take control of retail operations out of the hands of Aurora lawmakers.

Rather than cap the number of shops at 10 or 20, it’s a more prudent plan to restrict these shops by zoning, density and proximity to critical community features. Had lawmakers done this with businesses like pawn shops, check-cashing stores and rental stores, East Colfax Avenue wouldn’t be facing the dilemma it does. By ensuring the stores are relatively few and far between, the city avoids the Colfax concentration and conundrum of too many sin-and-sorry businesses too close to each other.

Clearly, city council members want to ensure that these retail pot shops are safe, well-regulated, profitable businesses that contribute to the community and keep their products out of the hands of children and adolescents. Aurora can do that best by keeping these operations right out in the open and under the scrutiny of police and the public. Natural concerns about these businesses — the storage of cash, of pot, carding purchasers and preventing kids from approaching customers — are all accomplished best by enforceable, accountable and observable city regulations controlled by Aurora’s government.