AURORANS REACT TO RISE OF POT-GROW HOMES

AURORA | Fluorescent lights glow all night long in the house next door
to Tracy Smith, accompanied by loud fans. At first, she couldn't
figure out what they were being used for, but then the musky smell of
marijuana tipped her off.

Smith, who didn't want her real name published in the newspaper
because she is fearful of backlash from her neighbors, has been living
next to a medical marijuana home grow operation in Aurora for several
months.

And she wants the growers out.

"Everyone knows what's going on, and people are really unhappy," Smith
said. "They do not want this in the neighborhood. No one wants them
here."

Smith and several other Aurora residents say they are opposed to
medical marijuana grow houses in their neighborhoods, while city
officials are currently determining which regulations, if any, need to
be implemented to govern them.

The Colorado Legislature passed a law this year that allows
"caregivers" to grow six marijuana plants and serve up to five
patients. Lawyers are adamant that municipalities and residents follow
the law's directives. But the law does not specify how many square
feet is required for a home grow operation, or what safety precautions
must be adopted.

Smith says she shouldn't be forced to accept a medical marijuana grow
house next door, especially when she considers the potential safety
hazards that could occur.

The amount of electricity needed to operate a grow house frightens
her. She said she was told by Aurora police officers that if the grow
house caught on fire, it would take her house down with it.

"They should not be growing in residential areas," Smith said. "They
should be in an industrial area. They don't belong in a neighborhood
- -- they don't even belong in a business district."

What really irks her is that her neighbors bought the house
specifically for a medical marijuana grow.

"You buy a house in a low-income neighborhood just so you can use us?"
she said. "That's what makes me more mad than anything is that someone
with money comes in and takes advantage of our neighborhood."

If she does have to continue living next to a grow house, she says
city officials must enact regulations - and fast. She rattled off a
list of her own proposed regulations: people who want to grow medical
marijuana in their homes should first consult with the neighborhood;
they should be required to undergo periodic code inspections; they
should have additional homeowners' insurance, a security system and
regular health and safety inspections.

At an Aurora City Council Neighborhood Services Committee meeting in
July, city officials began tackling the prospects of regulating the
residential growing of medical marijuana - the first in a series of
discussions slated to occur monthly through November. Other cities in
Colorado are proposing zoning ordinances for home grow operations as
well. Denver city officials are currently contemplating an ordinance
that would limit the number of marijuana plants that caregivers could
grow in their homes to 12.

Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates said at the meeting that the city's
police officers have identified 63 locations where medical marijuana
was being grown in a residential home in Aurora as of July 1. That's
up from the 54 grows that were reported in early June, and the total
number of home grows increased by 217 percent in the past six months,
he said.

Since home grow operations have proliferated, Oates said his narcotics
unit has devoted 40 percent of its time to identifying them and
determining whether they are legitimate.

The city's building code representatives often accompany police
officers to investigate the grow houses as well. Hundreds of building
code violations have been cited at the grow house operations across
the city, with most of them being electrical violations, said Scott
Berg, chief building official.

"The main area has been electrical code violations because (the grow
houses) require lights and ventilations, air filtration, things like
that," he said. "There are also mechanical and plumbing violations,
but electrical violations are what we're seeing most often."

Officials from marijuana advocacy groups maintain that the safety
hazards associated with growing medical marijuana in a home are slim.

"There's a level of misunderstanding about the perceived dangers of
this plant," said Brian Vicente, a lawyer and the executive director
of the nonprofit medical marijuana advocacy group Sensible Colorado.
"There's no possibility of overdose, it does not commonly lead to
electrical fires, and it's being used in a legitimate fashion."

In addition to worrying about electrical hazards, some Homeowners
Association presidents are also concerned about the potential for
theft and burglary.

Since caregivers usually deal in cash, the home grow operation could
be the target of criminal activity, said Duane Senn, president of the
Laredo Highline HOA.

"We are absolutely opposed to home grown marijuana operations," he
said. "The system is setting them up to be targets, and the
neighborhoods they're in to be targets. If it's really medical
marijuana, we believe it should be sold at a pharmacy."

Vicente says Homeowners Associations should be "hands-off" on the
issue.

"(They) need to keep in mind that we're talking about people's
medicine," he said. "In the same way we wouldn't ban someone from
having heart medicine at their home, they should do the same for
medical marijuana."

Officials from the city's newly created Medical Marijuana Task Force
will convene at a Neighborhood Services Committee meeting Aug. 19 to
discuss the potential safety risks of medical marijuana home grow
operations.

A report detailing what kinds of chemical waste products are being
flushed down the city's water system as a result of the home grow
operations is expected to be given to committee members at the meeting.

At the meeting, city officials are also expected to clarify whether
using a house solely for medical marijuana grows is legal.

Nadine Caldwell, president of the Northwest Aurora Neighborhood
Organization says using a house for anything other than living
shouldn't be allowed.

"You know there's something wrong with this when you can take a
residence and turn it into a commercial building," she said. "I hope
we don't have any in our neighborhood."