Carving Out Dispensary Rules

Weedpipe

420 Member
Telluride, Colorado - Back in October, when medical marijuana dispensaries were cropping up all over Colorado and dispensary operators began showing interest in Telluride, the town council here imposed a moratorium on all new pot shops.

The moratorium wasn't enacted to ban medical marijuana dispensaries outright in Telluride; instead, town officials said, the idea was to give time to carve out some rules for regulating the legal sales of pot within town limits.

Since then, the Planning and Zoning Commission and staff have done just that; creating zone district regulations for medical marijuana dispensaries.

And on Tuesday, the Town Council will consider passing a first reading of an ordinance that sets out those regulations. The matter is scheduled for discussion at 10:50 a.m. in Rebekah Hall.

The moratorium, which the town passed on Oct. 27, stalls sign permits, sales tax licenses or land use approvals for medical marijuana dispensaries until April.

Regardless, two dispensaries had their permits complete before the moratorium was enacted, and have since opened shops on Colorado Avenue. Legally Supplied Marijuana For Telluride and Alpine Wellness are doing business.

In 2000, Colorado voters approved Amendment 20, a law that authorizes patients who suffer from certain medical conditions to enroll in a state program and use medical marijuana. But the rise of dispensaries in the state was slow on the uptake.

It wasn't until this year that the number of both dispensaries and registered patients soared. The spike was the result of a pair of government actions: The Obama Administration announced it would no longer crack down on medical marijuana purveyors operating within state laws, and the Colorado Board of Health eliminated a limit on the number of patients a dispensary can have.

Telluride is just one of many towns that have enacted moratoriums on medical marijana. Mountain Village, Pueblo, Loveland and Longmont have also passed moratoriums.

The Telluride Town Council will also consider the first reading of an ordinance that would change the zoning of the hillside neighborhood, with the main goal of allowing development there to follow the topography of the land and not the town grid.

Hillside is to the steep neighborhood north of Telluride. People who own lots there have struggled for years to develop them.



News Hawk- Weedpipe 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: Telluride Daily Planet
Author: Katie Klingsporn
Contact: Telluride Daily Planet > Front
Copyright: 2010 Telluride Daily Planet
Website:Telluride Daily Planet > News
 
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