GETTING LEGAL

17 Medical Pot Centers File Paperwork With County

There's nothing like a deadline to get results.

Hoping to get legal with both Pueblo County and state officials, the
operators of 17 medical marijuana centers filed paperwork Thursday
with the county planning department -- proving that medical pot
already is a robust business in the county.

Six of those applicants already have Colorado sales tax licenses,
meaning they're in operation. County officials were aware of only four
earlier this month.

Another two applicants with existing state licenses are from Fort
Collins and Colorado Springs, but they want to open centers here.
Whether the commissioners will accept that expansion is unknown.

Another nine applications came from county residents who are in the
process of applying for a state sales tax license.

"That's more (centers) than I realized were out there," said Gary
Raso, the county's land-use attorney.

Raso created this week's process of having any operating center file a
simple "pre-application" document with county officials by 5 p.m.
Thursday. The application had to spell out whether the business had or
was applying for a state sales tax license.

Under a new state law passed in May, medical marijuana centers that do
not have some form of local government approval by July 1 cannot
operate legally until they obtain a state marijuana license in July
2011. That deadline caused the crush of applications at the county
planning department this week.

Not that the centers are guaranteed of being legal once county
officials adopt their own zoning and operating regulations later this
year.

"We were specific that nothing in this process can be used to claim
prior county approval," Raso said.

"We were simply trying to accommodate the marijuana centers that have
been in operation with some means of staying in business -- as far as
the state is concerned -- until our own regulations are complete," he
said.

While centers are coming out of the sagebrush in the county, Pueblo
city officials sent a cease-and-desist notice Tuesday to the one
marijuana center within the city that was operating despite a city
moratorium.

The owners of MediMar Ministries, 112 Colorado Ave., contend they can
provide marijuana to their patients because they obtained a city sales
license in 2009, before City Council imposed a moratorium on licensing
any of those centers.

Council is deciding whether to ask city voters on Nov. 2 whether to
allow medical marijuana centers in the city.

The county commissioners have taken a different approach, trying to
accommodate the operating centers while the Legislature determined how
to regulate the businesses. The commissioners said earlier this week
they were not interested in a county ballot question on whether to
allow the centers in the county.