AURORA MULLS NEW RULES FOR HOME-GROW POT OPERATIONS -

AURORA | How much is too much when it comes to medical marijuana?

Members of the Aurora City Council Neighborhood Services Policy
Committee suggested preliminary rules to help solve questions of
home-grow operations during an Aug. 19 meeting.

The city's Medical Marijuana Task Force solicited help from medical
marijuana advocate Timothy Tipton earlier this month to develop
regulations that could be imposed on Aurora home-grow operations.

Medical marijuana operations in homes should be restricted to 80
square feet, according to one suggestion by Tipton, cofounder of the
Rocky Mountain Caregivers Cooperative. Tipton says 80 square feet is
an appropriate limitation in which marijuana plants could be
cultivated successfully.

If a caregiver needs more than 80 square feet to grow their marijuana
plants, they must register with the city and obtain a local permit,
according to a second potential regulation.

"It could be that if you have 80 feet or less, Aurora government does
not regulate your activity," said Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates at
the meeting. "If you have more than 80 square feet, you must be
licensed and inspected."

A newly enacted Colorado law allows medical marijuana caregivers to
have five patients and grow six plants per patient, but the law does
not specify what is the allowable maximum number of plants.

Federal law, however, stipulates that no more than 99 plants can be
grown in a home-based operation, Tipton said.

Restricting the number of plants that could be cultivated in a
home-grow operation would be hard for municipalities if they were
trying to avoid lawsuits.

"We see a legal quagmire roadblock facing Aurora or any community
that really engages in a plant number limitation," Tipton said. "We
believe a patient or caregiver should be allowed to maintain a
caregiver operation of an 8-foot-by-10-foot area."

The third potential regulation stipulates that only a primary
resident can grow marijuana.

Tom Nicholas, chairman of the Medical Marijuana Task Force and deputy
city manager, said he'd come back to the September committee meeting
with final, specific regulations for medical marijuana home grows.

"We're at the point where you can get all the knowledge about what's
a good grow environment," he said. "Now it's a question about what
kinds of regulations (to implement)."

Councilwoman Melissa Miller was concerned at last month's
neighborhood services committee meeting that some Aurora homeowners
are using their residences strictly for growing marijuana.

Under city ordinances, it is illegal for a residential property to be
used primarily for anything other than living, said Nancy Sheffield,
neighborhood services liaison, at last week's meeting.

"The primary use of a residential property has to be for residence,"
Sheffield said. "Somebody cannot purchase a home and strictly set up
a grow operation and not reside in the home."

The city's code enforcement department already has ways of
determining whether a homeowner is actually living in the home, Sheffield said.

"It would be a question of proof," she said. "We would want to have
evidence that someone's in the kitchen making meals, using bedrooms."

Miller was also concerned last month about what types of chemicals
were being disposed of in the city's water system as a result of
these medical marijuana home-grow operations.

The Aurora Water Department hasn't yet noticed any contaminants in
the water as a result of the home grows, Nicholas said.

"The kinds of grows they've seen thus far would not suggest a
problem," he said.

As of July 1, the city's police officers have identified 63 locations
where medical marijuana was being grown in a residential home in Aurora.

That's up from the 54 grows that were reported by the police
department in early June.

Residents in about 30 locations showed some sort of documentation
that justified the existence of the marijuana plants. The number of
home grows increased by more than twofold in the past six months.

Since home grows of medical marijuana have proliferated, Oates said
his narcotics unit has devoted 40 percent of its time to identifying
the home grows and determining whether they are legitimate.