Dispensary Owner Sleeps In Car And Pays $5,000 For The Privilege

[Jim Finnel]

Wesley Fazio waited twelve hours -- in a cold car, in his long underwear -- for a shot at making his soon-to-open dispensary legal.

Yesterday, the Denver Department of Excise and Licenses started accepting applications for medical marijuana dispensary licenses -- which every operational dispensary must apply for by March 1 under the ordinance passed last month by Denver City Council.

And Fazio was first in line.

Fazio had been one of dozens of speakers who testified before Denver City Council before the vote on medical marijuana dispensary regulations last month, and he didn't sugar-coat his displeasure over council's decision to replace January 1 with December 15 as the sales-tax license cut-off date grandfathering in dispensaries that would otherwise be in violation of the new buffer zones.

That's because Fazio had gotten the sales-tax license for his dispensary at 2193 West Evans Avenue on December 30. And there's a dispensary that could be within the 1,000 foot buffer.

So he wasn't about to be caught napping when the city started accepting dispensary license applications. He arrived at the Wellington E. Webb Building at 7 p.m. on February 6, parked his car outside and slept there. "I have on long johns," he said, "But it was not a good time."

Still, his efforts paid off when he was first up in the application process at 7:30 a.m. yesterday morning. The paperwork was complete in just twenty minutes, after which he had to pay $5,033 for the application and a first-year fee -- for a dispensary that isn't even open yet -- and then have his fingerprints taken for the background check that's part of the application.

By the time he was done, the line of people waiting for fingerprints was long (everyone who owns at least 10 percent of a dispensary must be fingerprinted for a background check, and there was only one machine in the department). But the number of people waiting to do paperwork had dwindled from fifty to two -- fewer than the number of reporters in the room.

By the end of the day, the department had processed just twenty applications from eager-beaver dispensary owners (and sent six more back to be completed). Still, that's a quick hundred grand in the city coffers -- with more to come.

Because as of Monday morning, Denver had issued 484 sales-tax licenses to dispensaries -- every one of which will need to file for a dispensary license within the next few weeks in order to stay in business.


NewsHawk: User: 420 Magazine - Cannabis Culture News & Reviews
Source: westword.com
Author: Patricia Calhoun
Copyright: 2010 Denver Westword, LLC.
Contact: The Denver Westword Blogs
Website: Medical marijuana dispensary owner sleeps in car and pays $5,000 for the privilege - Denver News - The Latest Word

 

[honestone]

It is great that the city of Denver is making $5000 per license. it will help the budget. Los Angeles should charge $100,000 per application. The dispensaries can afford to pay. Dispensaries are supposed to be non profit but anyone who thinks dispensaries do not make a profit is naive.

 

[gromper]

Licensing fees should be on a par with the fees for any Pharmacy, but states obviously see what a cash cow the marijuana industry is/will be and want their piece of the pot-pie, most of which is still being circulated through street sources whether those streets lead to Mexico or Canada. The sooner they can shift this cash-flow to the city/state coffers, the sooner the industry will become mainstream.

 

[honestone]

A liquor license cost a lot of money. If a bar wants a pool table that is another license. I am sure bars don't want to pay for expensive licenses but its the price they must pay to serve booze and let their customers play pool. Marijuana dispensaries must pay the state if they want the privilege of selling marijuana. Of course the state wants money. The state of California pays Caltrans to repair the roads. The repairs to the roads are not free. The state also pays for public schools. Educating our children is not free. Teachers work in exchange for salaries as their college education was not free. The state allows marijuana dispensaries to violate federal law. The least dispensaries can do in exchange for a location to violate federal law is pay for licenses and filing an accurate tax return. The prices the dispensaries charge for pot is far from cheap.

 

[gromper]

I am not knocking how expensive it is and I am sure the dispensaries will be able to afford it, but I checked and a pharmacy license is somewhere around $500 and what do they do - Dispense Medicine. What does a dispensary do - same thing.

Caltrans is funded mostly by gasoline taxes, Education by property taxes and lottery funds, and you mention liquor licenses - that is a tax on consumption of recreational intoxicants not medicine. I am sure that when, eventually, there are pot bars, they will have hefty license fees and sales taxes on every gram. They take what we like that is consumed in high volume, and make special taxes to make it more expensive so they can have their piece of the pie, and continue to fuel the illegal sales of the good stuff which is presently cheaper on the street.
Taxes and license fees are necessary and they should be commensurate with similar businesses. I would be surprised if Denver is not already spending the fees they have not collected yet.

Sorry - I tend to ramble.