How Marijuana Grew on Aurora

Brian Ruden is pacing back and forth across wooden planks that line the floor of an empty room that once housed a bodega. Some of the ceiling panels are missing, while others are water-stained. The beige tile floor is cracked and discolored with age. This type of disrepair is common in much of north Aurora, where older suburban strip malls dominate the landscape.

“We’re thinking of building a half wall up here,” he says, pointing to planks that have been placed to form a square in front of the glass entrance.“You have to buzz in so you can walk behind it.” An architect follows him and furiously scribbles notes on renovations that will be made to the to the tune of $400,000. Ruden’s plan is not just for this former convenience store at Del Mar Circle and East Colfax Avenue to get a facelift. As the new property owner of the entire strip mall he plans for all of its tenants to be part of the makeover.

“The store itself is going to be ultramodern, high end. I think Aurora is going to be really proud to have a Starbuds here,” he says.

Ruden, who owns Starbuds and purchased the building upon receiving a license from the city in September,  will be giving the entire strip complex a new facade. He also  plans to fix the narrow, pothole-filled parking lot.

Outside, workers are busy peeling off the letters from what was once known as The Parkway Convenience Store, to put up a bright white banner for the new business. Starbuds is one of 21 recreational marijuana shops granted a license to operate in Aurora.

That Aurora will have recreational marijuana stores like Ruden’s open this year is a dramatic shift for the city. Aurora as a temptation island — the first city selling marijuana west of Kansas —  was unheard of four years ago.  In 2010, when medical marijuana had been allowed in the state for a decade, the city’s residents still voted to prohibit medical marijuana dispensaries from operating within city limits.

At the time, there were concerns about how the dispensaries would affect property values. And some city council members worried that Havana Street would turn into Broadway Street in Denver, where every other store seemed to sport a large green cross.

Aurora has a reputation as a conservative city with unusual business requirements. For example, a business that wants to advertise with balloons or an inflatable device in Aurora can only do so one time per calendar year for a maximum of 72 consecutive hours.

Aurora Councilman Bob Roth, who chaired the city’s ad hoc committee on retail marijuana, says any conservative notions council members had about pot were required to fall by the wayside once residents went to the ballot box in 2012.

That year, voters across Aurora approved recreational marijuana by 57 percent to 43 percent. A city council uncertain of how to proceed imposed a year-long moratorium in response so they could learn how to regulate an industry they didn’t really understand.

“Our approach since it was new to us was to make it as restrictive as possible. And to make sure we made it difficult, quite frankly, for an operator of a retail store to come into the city. We did a lot of things that a lot of people didn’t do,” Roth says.

Roth admits the city received criticism for drafting criteria that included applicants having at minimum $400,000 in cash on hand to qualify for a license. Those critics claimed the city was ensuring only the  Budweisers, Millers and Coors would get a license versus the mom-and-pop shops.

Those critics were right. The $400,000 requirement was part of a complex scoring system that limited where businesses could locate in the city, and awarded bonus points for additional cash, increased security measures and air filtration systems.

“A future council, or this council in the future, can always relax those restrictions. But if we had more relaxed restrictions, we wouldn’t be able to put the cat back into the bag,” Roth explains. “So our idea was to make it as restrictive as possible to start with, and then we can always relax it later on … We’d like the craft beer, but we’d like to make sure the big boys are doing it correctly first.”

And so far, the businesses that received licenses to operate in Aurora have been making a good impression.

“We’ve got four spots in my ward that are going to be cleaned up,” says Aurora Councilwoman Molly Markert.  “I was already visiting one, and they’ve got the crew up there, they’re cleaning up the parking lot, they’re doing stuff that hasn’t been done in five years. I’m not going to complain about that. They’re going to add something we haven’t had.”

One of the locations chosen for a marijuana store in Markert’s ward is a peeling pink shopping center at South Parker Road and Yale Avenue. All but one of its units are vacant. One, a former martial arts studio, still displays loud neon green and pink decals listing a phone number for the nonexistent studio next to a cartoon arm flexing its bicep. Next door sits an African restaurant that at one time was called The Palava. Now it’s an eyesore with  an eerie faded sign and a few faux bricks dangling tenuously from an awning above
the entrance.

Here, Tim Cullen is spending over $1 million as the new property owner to renovate the building. Cullen who owns Colorado Harvest Company is already  co-owner of two retail cannabis shops in the state.

“We would like it to be the anchor of the strip center,” he says of his new store. He envisions that other tenants might be a craft coffee shop or a funky pizza parlor. He adds that the store will look nothing like a college dorm room with the tie-dyed tapestries hanging off the walls. The aesthetic he wants to create is more steampunk, with custom wood cabinetry and polished concrete floors.

He also has plans for both Aurora stores to be better than his Denver store.

“This isn’t the first time we’ve done this, and that experience in the last five years will be really evident when we open the stores in Aurora,” he says. “We’re not going to trip over ourselves trying to get this done. It’s going to roll out very professionally, and it will be run very professionally.”

Gayle Jetchick, executive director of the Havana Business Improvement District, says she has so far been impressed by the friendliness and professionalism of the two marijuana businesses opening on Havana Street.

For years Jetchick thought the north Havana neighborhood would not welcome dispensaries. The 4.3 miles that stretch from Sixth Avenue to Dartmouth Avenue is home to mostly Asian, Latino, and African small business owners. She knew they disliked the idea of being next to a business operating outside of the federal government. Some shop owners were also afraid their insurance would be canceled if a marijuana dispensary moved in next door.

“They (the businesses) did ask questions to make sure the property would be spruced up with a nice sign like Starbucks and no bars on the windows,” Jetchick says. “The owners reassured the businesses they were looking to be a good neighbor and an asset to the district.”

Financially, the stores are predicted to be a boon for Aurora. The city’s finance department estimates retail stores in the city will bring at least $2.8 million in new tax revenue in their first year of being open. And if Aurora approves a ballot initiative in November that adds special taxes on pot sold in city limits, that will provide an additional $5.2 million for the city’s coffers.

For Aurora Councilman Bob LeGare, the move to accept retail marijuana was all about money.

“We’re a city of almost 350,000 residents. For us to say we’re not going to allow sales in our city, that would be like putting our heads in the sand and pretending this isn’t happening in our city,” LeGare says.

Since it started allowing recreational marijuana sales this past January, the state saw $30 million in tax revenue by June. Some of that money came from the pockets of Aurora residents who traveled to Denver where the majority of retail marijuana stores are located. By the end of this year, the state expects to bring in around $100 million in revenue.

Despite the prospect of money and infrastructure improvements, some business owners in Aurora remain skeptical.

Maricruz Reyes runs a fitness business two units down from Starbuds. She’s been in the building six years, providing Zumba classes in the morning for a customer base that is mostly Latino mothers who live in the neighborhood. She’s worried about the smell, and how it will impact mothers who often bring their children to class.

Ruden says what Reyes might not realize is that he wants to help her remodel her space at no cost to her, and the smells as well as neighboring noise will be mitigated by newer walls and insulation between the businesses. He says the shopping center will become a destination, not just a neighborhood hangout, which could translate into even more business for Reyes. He adds that on-site security for the strip center would provide additional security for the area if issues do arise.

“That’s exactly what we want in the older parts of Aurora, we want buildings rehabilitated,” says Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan. “Does it matter if it’s a marijuana-related owner that’s doing it? No it doesn’t. The city is getting better infrastructure than what we had before, and a better likelihood that a strong tenant is going to come in and take up space in the rest of a building. That creates jobs for people in addition to the money.”

Cullen is building another store from scratch in Aurora in addition to his space at Yale and South Parker Road. He has 45 employees right now, but plans to double his staff once the new stores open. He says he plans to hire people who live in Aurora.

Hogan says residents who are worried about the new stores should look to other municipalities that have allowed marijuana businesses to open this year.

“In Denver, whether it was medical marijuana or recreational marijuana, it did not result in huge problems for building owners, other tenants, law enforcement, or anybody else,” he says.  “Certainly there have been headlines about problems with edibles, but that doesn’t have anything to do with whether a person in a vacant space next to you is a marijuana shop. You could say the same thing about a liquor store, about fumes from a dry cleaner. There are a whole host of other retail businesses that carry their own concerns with them.”

Markert thinks that because marijuana businesses are under such scrutiny, they will be even better neighbors than if, say, a liquor store or a dry cleaner were to move in.

“By imposing constraints, I think we modified the notion it’s going to be some free for all. It’s not something a couple of kids can wake up one morning and say, hey let’s start a shop. I think, truly, in a year, it’s going to be no big deal,” she
says.