MEDICAL MARIJUANA ORDINANCE GETS PRELIMINARY OK

Public Hearing Scheduled for June 21

For decades, Telluride has had a liquor licensing authority to
regulate the sales of booze in town. Now, it appears it will create a
similar authority for the regulation of medical marijuana.

The Telluride Town Counsil gave preliminary approval this week to an
ordinance that would create a licensing authority as well as tweak
some of the town's existing medical marijuana regulations.

Council gave unanimous approval to the ordinance on Tuesday. A final
reading and public hearing is scheduled for June 21.

"It sets up a licensing authority and attempts to provide additional
clarity and regulation in areas that the state did not regulate," said
Town Attorney Kevin Geiger.

The ordinance sprung from a state mandate that gave individual cities
or towns in Colorado until July 1 to implement licensing regulations
if they wanted to regulate medical marijuana facilities within their
borders. (That deadline was recently extended, but Telluride is still
on track to adopt by July 1.)

If Telluride chose not to create regulations, then local facilities
would have to abide by state rules. But the town took this track
because it wanted to tailor regulations to its size and unique
characteristics.

The 41-page ordinance sets up a licensing authority with a hearing
officer who would review license applications and renewals and check
in with facilities on a yearly basis. Applicants must submit an
operational plan, details on how and where products are cultivated,
advertised, stored and processed, along with information on hours of
operation, the number of employees, record keeping and a security plan.

It also sets out several rules for running medical marijuana
facilities in town. Some significant sections of the ordinance include:

A requirement that facilities have venting systems that ensure the
smell of cannabis doesn't waft into public air.

A requirement that signs or ads must specify that products sold
contain medical marijuana. This pertains to infused products like ice
cream, candies and soda and aims to keep products from being
misleading to children.

A requirement that employees must be 21 or older to work at a
dispensary. This brings Telluride's rules in line with the state's.

Dispensaries must be at least 500 feet from schools with mandatory
attendance. In Telluride, that includes the Telluride Elementary
School and Telluride Middle/High School.

At its meeting on Tuesday, town council decided to avoid setting
distance requirement from parks or childcare facilities because the
town is very small and it doesn't want to put any existing medical
marijuana centers out of business.