QUID HAS HEARD the ball drops a little early this year for those of us Aurorans. Well, maybe not the ball, but a big claw is tearing down that monster eyesore on Havana Street on Dec. 17. At 9 a.m. crews will line up to tear down the bulbous mound of pigeon crap parked on North Havana. The demolition has been long coming, considering people have called for the blighted building’s removal since the late 1960s. Quite frankly, the only thing keeping the building alive for years has been the floor-to-ceiling asbestos — apparently that was a good idea, once. Nevermind, let’s toast to the fall of Aurora’s landmark skidmark. Quid will take three fingers of something, anything. What, 9 a.m. is too early for you?
QUID HAS HEARD Aurora’s city staff and lawmakers are doing a poor job of hiding their disdain for marijuana. During several recent meetings, there was plenty of hand waving and dismissing of Colorado’s new-found recreational activity because apparently they “don’t agree with it, but whatever.” Now, Quid doesn’t expect every ordinance to be executed with smiles, but enough is enough. Just get on with the business of making it happen. The city is in real danger of pushing its recreational stores back further, despite near-unanimous voter approval more than a year ago. By the time the first store opens in Aurora, it may be more than two years after the legislation passed in the state. Yes, Councilwoman Peterson and Chief Oates, we understand you don’t like it. Your constituents want it. Can we please move on?
QUID HAS HEARD the only way to run a good campaign for 2018 is starting in 2013. In a guest column posted on this rag’s website, Arapahoe District Attorney George Brauchler took to task Perry’s assertion that the DA should have avoided the pointless posturing made by Secretary of State Scott Gessler to track down all two of Aurora’s illegal voters. If you haven’t noticed, elections fraud seems to rile up the right, and Gessler and Brauchler are both Republicans. Gessler is running for governor in 2014, Brauchler can’t. But that won’t stop needless screeds about fair, open and honest elections, where thousands of dollars are dedicated to finding two, probably harmless, immigrants who signed the wrong line. There’s nothing here that suggests that Colorado’s elections are fantastically rife with lousy voters. None.
AND THAT’S ALL THE NEWS FIT TO PRINT
Let’s clarify a misconception that keeps getting repeated in this space, the Aurora Sentinel and other Colorado media. It may be true that an amendment would pass where large scale recreational use of marijuana would be condoned and citizens wanted local sales in their town. But that is not what we were voting on. We voted to decriminalize recreational use (a huge waste of police and the court system, and which [due to stupid adults doing stupid things] created a black market and made murky the legal sale for medicinal use). The only thing that was supposed to change was that people would cease be prosecuted — not having more people engaging in recreational stupidity or even becoming more public in its use.
As I’ve written to the city council, we should not be selling marijuana within city limits or profiting from vice. Buy it in some other town! But if that is our motive (to make money) then we’d best legalize gambling and prostitution within our city limits, too. We’re missing huge revenue generation here. If we need all these convenient shops (seen and been appalled by the map of proposed outlet locations), then perhaps we should allow our grocery chains to sell hard liquor and increase sales.