MONEY IN THE POT

Dispensaries Bring Longmont $61,798 in Sales Tax

LONGMONT - Medical marijuana isn't big business in Longmont - but it
may be a bigger business than in Boulder.

Not in terms of gross dollars, of course. Through October 2010 (the
most recent date for which there are figures), Boulder took in
$444,777 in sales tax from its dispensaries. Longmont saw a
comparatively small $61,798.

But Boulder has 117 dispensaries with business and sales tax licenses
(and another 62 that never applied for the former). Longmont has nine.

Add it up. That's about $6,866 per Longmont dispensary. Boulder's
averages out to just shy of $2,485 - or to about $3,801 if you
include only the fully licensed businesses.

"I wonder if that's to do with the market conditions," said Longmont
revenue manager Ezequiel Vasquez. "There's less competition."

And not much room for more. Longmont has had a moratorium on new
dispensaries since fall 2009. It currently is set to last until June
30, the day before new state regulations on medical marijuana take effect.

July 1 is also the deadline for municipalities to enact their own
regulations. That can range from local licensing standards to an
outright ban of medical marijuana businesses.

It's an issue that's taken time for some communities to work out. In
October 2009, Dacono laid out zoning rules for dispensaries. The
following May, a moratorium went into place. The city now has three
dispensaries, one still new enough that there aren't sales tax
numbers for it yet.

"We're going to be looking, probably in February or March, on what
we're doing long-term," said Dacono administrator Bill Efting. "We
need to figure out what we're doing by July 1 for sure, and we hope
to have it worked out by the first of May."

Dacono's two reporting dispensaries brought in a combined $18,260 of
sales tax, as of October 2010.

By comparison, the business seems to be narrowing in Lyons. The small
town started the year with seven dispensaries, and was down to four
by October, according to town administrator Victoria Simonsen.

A couple had been licensed but never actually got under way, Simonsen
said, while others dropped out rather than go through the state
licensing process. Lyons is working with the remaining four, she
said, as the town designs its local licensing authority and zoning
rules for dispensaries.

"We have a goal set to have those things in place by the end of
March," she said.

During the 10-month period, Lyons collected $3,067 in sales tax from
the dispensaries.