Having lived here nearly half my life, I frequent local businesses and want them to succeed and thrive. I’m proud to support companies that call Boulder home, too, — shops and stores that are part of the fabric of the community and who call me by my first name. Chain stores serve their function, but we all know a viable city needs to be built around a strong homegrown business community.
Cannabis stores have now been open for a year and a half, and as a consumer, I’m especially eager to see local businesses thrive, especially the ones that came onboard at the beginning and took the chance to operate a legitimate business for a substance illegal under federal law beneath a confusing labyrinth of uncertain legal, financial and existential challenges. I’m just not that excited to see marijuana business, especially in Boulder, become just another string of corporate stores. In this case, smaller and local is better.
I know that the city prides itself on its overlapping maze of regulatory rules and procedures, and in general, I’m a believer in regulations that promote the local welfare and protect citizens, business owners and employees.
I can also understand the pressure on legislators, since Amendment 64 dictated strict timelines for rulemaking. But a close look at the city rules on marijuana is confusing at best. The Boulder charter states (6-16-1) that “the City Council intends to regulate the use, possession, cultivation, production and distribution of marijuana in a manner that is consistent with Amendment 64 and finds that the provisions of this chapter are directly and demonstrably related to the operation of marijuana establishments in a manner to minimize negative impacts on the community.”
But the city’s own regulations sometimes go beyond the state rules. Some seem arbitrary, others counter-intuitive and aimed at putting local marijuana businesses at a competitive disadvantage. A large percentage of Boulder citizens voted for legalization, and I’m sure most would agree that the city should ensure that cannabis businesses located here are at least allowed the chance to build their brands.
Take the city’s coupon ban. This makes no sense whatsoever. Currently, no Boulder marijuana business can place a coupon in a newspaper or magazine. Any other business in the state can put a coupon in Boulder publications. It’s a staple of local business — who hasn’t used one? — but the ban leaves local cannabis businesses at a distinct disadvantage. It strains credibility to imagine what “negative impacts on the community” can come from a coupon? No other jurisdiction in the state has this, and it’s reminiscent of the merchandise ban in the original city ordinance that was amended by council last year.
Another one that confuses me has to do with infused-products manufacturing. Ordinance 6-16-5 says that city cultivation facilities must be owned by the licensee. But it also requires that those businesses own manufacturing facilities that provide 70 percent of the marijuana used for infusion. The number of manufacturing facilities you can own in town is limited and each is restricted to 15,000 square feet or less. Perhaps there are, but I see no reasons for this beyond making it almost impossible for local businesses to produce edible products.
Then there’s the so-called “Sunset Rule,” which allows an existing medical business to become a co-located retail and medical store and which expires on Dec. 31, 2015. This arbitrary deadline needs to be permanently removed. I know the city added this initially to help limit cannabis businesses, but unless it’s rescinded, it could work in the opposite way. Some medical businesses haven’t been able to convert yet, for whatever reasons, and they should still have the same chance that any beginning business gets.
It also is concerning that a recreational business license (6-16-3) is not transferable or assignable to anybody else. Which basically means that if you sell a grow operation, you must destroy your product first. Talk about lessening value. And Boulder is the only place in the state where there is no chance for appealing a decision concerning rules violations. Negative impacts on the community? Or on cannabis businesses?
I’ve talked with a lot of business owners over the last couple of years, and those who have been successful work very hard to comply with the often bewildering rules and regs of both the city and the state. Marijuana is legal in Boulder, and it’s likely to stay that way. Cannabis businesses in Boulder pay local, state and federal taxes, and the city collects sales-tax revenue. Boulder should extend to them the same basic courtesies it offers any other business to be able to grow and prosper.
You can hear Leland discuss his most recent column and Colorado cannabis issues each Thursday morning on KGNU. http://news.kgnu.org/weed
