MEDICAL POT SHOP DEBATE HEADS TO CITIES

Durango, Bayfield Are Ahead of Game; Ignacio Just Starting

COLORADO SPRINGS - Colorado's state-wide medical marijuana debate is
going local, with several cities planning to ban marijuana
dispensaries less than a week after a state law took effect giving
them that authority.

Bayfield banned dispensaries and grow operations in a Town Board vote
last month. Patients can still receive deliveries in Bayfield.

"We don't think we need a storefront in Bayfield," Town Manager
Justin Clifton said.

Dispensaries have proliferated in Durango, but the city and La Plata
County have issued moratoriums on new ones.

In Ignacio, town officials began discussing Tuesday how to regulate
dispensaries, but took no immediate action.

Some city officials want to ban dispensaries outright while others
want voters to decide. And in Colorado Springs, a conservative
bastion with more than 100 dispensaries at last count, citizens angry
at neighborhood pot shops are launching a petition drive to have the
city shutter all pot dispensaries.

"They should be banned," said Steve Wind, a military retiree who
started the petition effort. A city panel delayed approval of the
petition effort Friday, calling for technical changes for legal
reasons, but Wind and other pot opponents say they'll be gathering
signatures within weeks to put the question to voters in Colorado's
second-largest city this fall.

In Aurora, Colorado's third-largest city, town officials are already
moving toward approving a similar ballot question. So far, Aurora has
banned dispensaries through a moratorium; the vote could make the ban
on pot shops permanent.

And in Vail, a mountain resort that also has a moratorium, the town
council is likely to vote on an outright ban, bypassing a public
vote, by the end of the summer.

"There is ample opportunity within 10 minutes of Vail to get medical
marijuana. We don't need dispensaries here," Vail Mayor Dick Cleveland said.

The city scramble to force pot shops to close, or prevent them in the
first place, sets up a likely legal battle between cities and medical
marijuana activists.

Earlier this year, the Denver suburb of Centennial tried and failed
to ban a marijuana dispensary, claiming cities have the right to ban
business that violate federal drug law, even if Colorado law allows them.

The marijuana dispensary in the Centennial case, Cannamart, prevailed
in county court. But the pot shop hasn't returned to Centennial,
opening two locations in other suburbs instead, so the question of
whether towns can ban marijuana businesses remained unsettled until
Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter on Monday signed into law a measure giving
cities permission to ban dispensaries if they wish.

Dispensary owners vow more lawsuits to challenge that law.

"We've been up and running for a year, no problem," said Anthony
Carmendy, owner of Pikes Peak Alternative Health & Wellness, a
Colorado Springs dispensary with about 480 patients.

"Now, because you can't control all the dispensaries, you want to ban
all of us? That's not right," Carmendy said.

The head of Sensible Colorado, a marijuana advocacy group, predicted
"a series of legal battles" over municipal pot bans in coming months.

But first, he said, marijuana advocates are hoping to prevent bans
from passing. They're mounting campaigns to remind voters that
Colorado legalized medical marijuana by a wide margin in 2000, and so
patients should have a place to buy medical marijuana. They're also
talking up economic benefits of selling and taxing pot - in Colorado
Springs, for example, the local chamber of commerce has avoided
taking a position on the prohibition attempt.

Herald Staff Writer Chuck Slothower contributed to this report.
chuck@durangoherald.com

Colorado Springs pot growers hope to give more citizens doubt about
whether dispensary bans are a good idea. Tanya Garduno, president of
the Colorado Springs Medical Cannabis Council, said pot shop
opponents are mistaken to think most residents don't like
neighborhood marijuana shops.

"I don't think they have as much public support as they think they
do," Garduno said.

She added that fears about the proliferation of pot shops in the last
year will diminish because other provisions in the state bill - such
as a new requirement that dispensaries grow at least 70 percent of
the pot they sell - will prompt a noticeable reduction in the number
of dispensaries already doing business.

But local officials and the Colorado Springs petitioners insist that
even if most voters here approve of medical marijuana for the sick,
people are alarmed by the number of dispensaries and want most of
them shut down.

"It's too often recreational use, not the way it was intended," said
Aurora City Councilman Robert Broom. He predicted easy passage of the
ballot ban.

"I think it's pretty much a done deal," Broom said.