Boulder Marijuana Rules Would Delay Recreational Shops

After a long and conflicted meeting, the city council set Boulder, Colorado’s marijuana rules. The conflicts of the meeting consisted mostly of over-strict regulations being revised, but the council also decided that applications would have to freeze for medical marijuana shops to prepare for the opening of recreational shops.

In addition to freezing the medical marijuana dispensary application process, the council said it will also have to delay the recreational application process until March. Delaying the application process until January second was bad enough, but March? The process is already underway here in Denver, and shops still won’t be open until January, 2014.

Other rules set by the council really are an improvement to the original proposals. Commercial growers will no longer be restricted to 1,000 plants, though there will be an additional $1 tax per plant over 1,000. Residents have already expressed concern about finding a new (better) way to limit grow businesses. A second violation for odor will no longer cost you your business, and dispensaries with pending applications will also have preferential treatment to recreational licenses.

Boulder residents may well have to wait until June to purchase their recreational weed locally, but at least it isn’t that far away from Denver. There is also a final vote on the issue November 12, if you live in Boulder you can still contact your city council and tell them what you’d like to see the recreational marijuana industry look like in your community.