Colorado’s been doing quite well these past two years, ever since recreational cannabis became legal. As a result of the “Great Experiment,” crime and traffic fatalities are down, drug incarcerations are down, and tax revenue is through the roof. In fact, we had so much tax from the social pot scene that the state almost returned tens of millions of dollars back to us taxpayers; instead, we voted to let the state keep it. “ That’s the big picture. On a smaller scale, not everyone’s enjoying the high life. Colorado Springs, the second largest city in the state, banned sales of recreational cannabis just as the rest of the state opened its doors to legalization. And despite the city’s residents voting in favor of Amendment 64 by around 5,000 votes, the city council chose to opt out.
“Ironically, this little opt-out provision to ban recreational stores was built into the law: if a city in Colorado doesn’t want legal weed, it doesn’t have to have it. Even if the voters approved.”
Colorado Springs: Not a Free Market Colorado Springs’ city council didn’t stop with just legal recreation marijuana. In the last year, the city council banned all home manufacture of life-saving cannabis oil within city limits. Then, just last month, the city council approved a moratorium on cannabis clubs. Cannabis clubs are private buildings where anyone over the age of 21 can meet other tokers and consume marijuana socially. These clubs are great places for rookies to get a hands-on education in safe use. Public consumption of cannabis is still illegal in Colorado, it’s now a civil infraction that nets a $100 fine. Tourists, technically, can only blaze up in these clubs. The club moratorium basically prevents any new cannabis clubs from opening for the next six months. For entrepreneurs who already invested in construction, renovation – and licensing – for a new club, city council says, “Too bad.” The moratorium goes a step further, and even blocks existing clubs from expanding, renovating, or changing location. Colorado Springs’ government was on a roll, and their interference into the city’s cannabis industry went even further. At the end of October, they approved another moratorium, this time against medical dispensaries. Just like cannabis clubs, no new dispensaries are allowed to open for at least six months. Existing dispensaries cannot expand or move location. No new grows, no renovations. Nada. One dispensary owner expressed his concern at an Oct. 13 council meeting. He claimed his lease was going to end in the next couple of months. The moratorium would prevent him from getting a new lease for his business. In other words, he’s out of luck, and may go bankrupt.
Another dispensary owner outright threatened the council with litigation. “If you approve this moratorium, we will file a class action lawsuit against the city,” he warned from the podium. Only four of the nine council members listened. The dispensary moratorium passed by a single vote. When activists, patients, attorneys and dispensary owners asked city council to provide a reason for the moratorium, Don Knight, one of the council members, replied that the city needed to revise the regulations. When pressed for further explanation, he couldn’t provide any. There have been zero burglaries and robberies at Colorado Spring’s dispensaries since 2011. Crime rates haven’t gone up in areas with dispensaries. Land values haven’t gone down in response to a dispensary’s presence. Data shows teens in Colorado are consuming less cannabis than the national average. Knight then demonstrated he’s either wholly ignorant of his city’s cannabis regulations or that he’s not a clever spin doctor – and I’m not sure which one’s worse. He claimed zoning laws were unfair to alcohol vendors, because booze peddlers had to jump through more hoops to get licensing (another claim he failed to support with evidence). “They want to regulate it like alcohol, that’s what they’re always saying,” he told the council. “Then let’s regulate it like alcohol.” No, we don’t want to regulate medical cannabis like alcohol, Mr. Knight. “Regulating like alcohol” was a campaign slogan for recreational cannabis, not medical. (However, to his credit, the only similarity between marijuana and alcohol regulation in Colorado is the age requirement for purchase – and that’s pretty much it.)
After hours of deliberation, Knight ran out of tricks. He couldn’t give reasonable answers to residents who demanded even one solid explanation for why the dispensary moratorium was necessary. That’s when Knight pulled his final ace: he called up Lee McRae, the city’s licensing officer, to the podium. McRae was asked what complaints people filed regarding the city’s medical dispensaries. He replied that a few residents complained about the smell of marijuana coming from some of the shops. The smell. Potentially millions of dollars will be in limbo for half a year because a few residents don’t like the skunk funk. Here we have the right-wing prohibitionists on city council, claiming they want to create jobs, claiming they support free markets, yet their rhetoric doesn’t match up to their actions.
These supposed free-market warriors are forcing hard-working, honest dispensary owners into financial hardship – because some people whined about the smell of cannabis. That was it.”
Purple Mountains, Purple Haze But why Colorado Springs, of all cities? What makes the Springs so much different from Denver, which continues to wow the world with the great legalization experiment? Denver’s experiencing an economic and cultural Renaissance due to cannabis sales. It’s in the news practically every day for some new innovation, business strategy, gimmick or legislation related to marijuana. And to the south of Colorado Springs is Pueblo, a quiet industrial town that’s also been bustling over the last two years due to its recreational market. First, Colorado Springs is unlike the rest of the state. It sits between four major military installations: two Air Force bases, one Army base and NORAD.
It’s home to the ” 22 KURPLE MAGAZINE 3.5 New Life Megachurch and the religious conservative policy groups “Focus on the Family” and the so-called Family Research Center. All three organizations have publicly denounced the state’s cannabis programs. Then there’s the history. Colorado Springs is home to the illustrious Broadmoor Hotel, a swanky spot where former President George W. Bush became a born-again Christian – while whacked out in the middle of a cocaine binge. In downtown Colorado Springs, you’ll find the Antlers Hilton Hotel, the place where Katherine Lee Bates wrote our nation’s patriotic jingle, “America the Beautiful.” According to legend, Bates originally titled her most famous work “Pikes Peak,” named after the mountain peak that’s visible from nearly every point in Colorado Springs. Maybe it’s because Bates’ song extended the metaphor of Colorado’s mountains to the entire nation’s identity. Maybe Colorado Springs’ prohibitionists see their city as the final all-American bastion in the great war against the Devil’s lettuce. Colorado Springs has, in a business-like sense, branded itself as the city that is not Denver.
The city council’s prohibitionists take pride in the idea that their city doesn’t allow recreational pot sales. They want Colorado Springs to be a “familyfriendly” town that attracts tourists on its own merits, not just on legal weed. Part of this family-friendly image is catering to the military presence in the city. Active-duty service members bring a lot of revenue to Colorado Springs. All but two members of the city council are former military (yet, oddly enough, the three pro-cannabis council members are former military, too). The prohibitionists claim if they permit recreational cannabis within city limits, the military will move its bases elsewhere. However, Denver has Buckley Air Force Base. And it’s still there, operating normally, even after two years of legalization.
Doubling Down on Double Standards Of course, what the city council considers “family-friendly” is up for debate. Take for instance the Liquor Stores, all of the Liquor Stores.
There’s one on practically every corner. City council has no problem with alcohol being sold recreationally, even though this is a substance that causes 88,000 deaths per year in the US alone, according to the Center for Disease Control. On that note, Colorado Springs has a problem with recreational alcohol in its downtown district. There are constant fist fights, stabbings, beatings and even shootings around downtown’s bars and nightclubs.
Oddly enough, most of these altercations involve active-duty soldiers – the very same soldiers that city council caters to. Yet city council hasn’t pushed for any moratoriums against the city’s bars, night clubs or liquor stores.
There’ve been no moratoriums on knife, gun or ammo sales, either. Not that any of this really matters. There’s a little known secret here in Colorado Springs that city council doesn’t like to talk about. It’s called Manitou Springs, a tiny mountain town that’s just a 10-minute drive from downtown Colorado Springs. Manitou Springs has two recreational shops: Maggie’s Farm and Emerald Fields. We don’t know how much tax revenue they’ve pulled in for Manitou (due to privacy laws regarding taxes), but they’re always busy.
If you’ve ever driven along Colorado Avenue from downtown Colorado Springs to Manitou Springs, you see just how absurd these moratoriums and bans truly are. That’s because Manitou Springs is practically part of Colorado Springs, yet Colorado Springs gets none of the tax revenue from Manitou’s businesses. That means all of the taxes Colorado Springs could be collecting from its residents and tourists is getting rerouted to its neighbors in Denver,a Pueblo and Manitou Springs.
Is Colorado Springs’ government trying to quietly stamp out its cannabis industry via legislation? It wouldn’t be a shocker: the city’s new mayor is none other than John Suthers, our state’s former DA. Suthers is no friend of Colorado’s green industry, and he’s been vocally hostile toward legal pot since he came into office. The unholy union between Suthers, the prohibitionists on city council, and possibly the commissioners of nearby towns (with legal rec cannabis, ironically) may all be in cahoots to make Colorado Springs the state’s second “Great Experiment.” Except whereas Denver is the testing ground for legalization, Colorado Springs may be the testing ground for prohibition. And if you’d like to see how well that’s going, just cruise through the Springs on any given night and note how many street lights are shut off, how many potholes pock the roads, and how many local businesses have been abandoned.
