BOARD DID RIGHT THING TO CONTINUE DISCUSSION ON POT MORATORIUM

The Windsor Town Board went into its meeting Monday night with the best
intentions to stay ahead of the runaway train that medicinal marijuana
dispensaries have become.

The town has three of these businesses already open (In Harmony Wellness
Center, A New Dawn Wellness Clinic, and Nature's Wellness). Five more are
in various stages of getting their building permits. And, still more are
on the way.

Maybe lots more. No one is exactly sure.

While we all like the idea of new businesses racing to our community, very
few of us will admit to being very excited about welcoming businesses that
dispense a controversial drug/product like marijuana and do so in a
largely unregulated, or under-regulated manner.

The threat from this isn't that deserving adults with a doctor's
prescription shouldn't be able to get marijuana for medical purposes. They
should.

The threat is that it will be too easy for underage youth to get marijuana
for recreational use.

Marijuana use, to no one's great surprise, is already a big issue at the
high school. With so many unregulated, or under-regulated dispensaries,
the proliferation of marijuana could easily jump off the charts.

Nearly every city and county in Colorado realizes this, too. And many are
taking action. In the past two weeks, Fort Collins has imposed a
moratorium. Larimer County has imposed a moratorium. Scores of other
cities and counties are in the process of doing the same thing.

That's why we applaud the Windsor Town Board for considering an emergency
ordinance last Monday night to stay in front of this issue before it gets
too out of control to manage.

We even applaud the tone of the board as it made it clear that it wasn't
going to debate whether the dispensaries are legal (they are and have been
since 2000 in Colorado) or whether adults should be able to purchase
marijuana with a prescription.

The issue at hand is how to regulate these businesses. The emergency
ordinance they considered reflected that.

After much debate and wrangling over whether such an ordinance would
punish a new business, the board voted 4-3 to approve the ordinance for a
moratorium.

However, the moratorium actually failed because all ordinances require a
super majority approval. In this case, a 5-2 minimum vote was needed.

It was like the board, with all its own good intentions, couldn't get out
of its own way to do the right thing.

The good news, however, is that the board isn't giving up on this sticky
issue. The board went back in an emergency session on Wednesday night to
try and resolve the moratorium issue.

Since we had to go to press before the board's vote, we have two final
things to say:

(1) Kudos for having the fortitude to continue on with a difficult topic
in a swift and timely manner. Time really is an issue with this since the
board likely could not resume on this topic until January.

(2) We hope the extra time will provide the board with a way to move
forward with a moratorium. Please don't delay. Let's not let a bad
situation get worse.