BRECKENRIDGE BANS LARGE POT HOME-GROW OPERATIONS

Town Council Limits Residential Growing to 12 Plants

BRECKENRIDGE - The Breckenridge Town Council unanimously adopted an
ordinance Tuesday restricting the growing of medical marijuana in
private homes following the discovery of four residential grow
operations and a letter from a 13-year-old local boy complaining
about the smell of marijuana in his neighborhood.

Under the new ordinance, no more than 12 marijuana plants can be
cultivated in a private residence in Breckenridge. Also, grow
operations must be in compliance with all existing building codes,
and the marijuana cannot be perceptible in any way, including by
smell, outside the residence.

Violators of the ordinance will face separate misdemeanor criminal
charges for every day any portion of the ordinance is violated.

A health and safety risk Amateur marijuana-growing operations out of
private homes are often set up with systems, equipment and chemicals
that present significant fire and safety hazards, Breckenridge Police
Chief Rick Holman and chief building official Glen Morgan told the
council at Tuesday's meeting.

In the past six months, Breckenridge authorities have discovered four
large grow operations in private houses in town, the biggest of which
housed more than 200 small plants. Three of the four growing
operations have now been shut down.

"Typically, what we find is not something like an herb garden,"
Holman said. "These are pretty extensive ... It's truly a health,
safety and quality of life issue."

Morgan and Holman said they were concerned about fire risks from
unsecured wires in rooms often wrapped in flammable plastic to
enhance lighting for the plants, as well as mold in the humid grow
rooms and explosive chemicals sometimes used to draw THC from the plants.

The marijuana grown in one of the Breckenridge homes was being
cultivated by a caregiver for several licensed medical marijuana
users who lived on the Front Range.

In at least two of the four home-growing operations discovered in the
last six months, the medical marijuana could be smelled outside the
house, and in three of the cases renters were growing the marijuana
without the knowledge or approval of the landlord - which is now
prohibited by the ordinance.

"In a weird way, this ordinance might even facilitate the landlord
saying yes," Breckenridge Mayor John Warner said at Tuesday's
meeting. "Because you have regulations and it will be done properly."

The Breck regs The ordinance restricts residential medical marijuana
cultivation in Breckenridge to the letter of state constitutional
law. Amendment 20 to the Colorado Constitution, approved by voters in
2000, allows patients licensed to use marijuana for medical purposes
and one live-in caregiver to each grow six plants out of their home
for private use.

The new ordinance allows up to 12 marijuana plants to be grown within
a 100 square-foot contiguous space in a private residence as long as
they are not in any way perceptible outside the house and are not
accessible to anyone without a medical marijuana license.

The measure gives the Breckenridge police the right to enter
residences in town where medical marijuana is grown during
"reasonable hours" to inspect the house for compliance with the
occupant or landowner's permission or with an inspection warrant
issued by a judge.

The home-grown marijuana issue was first raised in December, after
the council received the letter from the Breckenridge teenager, who
asked that his name not be printed

The letter explained his frustration with marijuana in his community,
from the smell on the gondola to the neighborhoods where children live.

The boy's neighbor, who was growing pot residentially, had an exhaust
system that blew the marijuana smell near the boy's front door. The
boy said he got tired of the smell and finally wrote the letter to council.