License applications submitted for 39 Westside dispensaries

       In keeping with a new state law, the Colorado Springs City Council required in June that any businesses wanting licenses for medical marijuana-related operations had to submit their applications by July 1.
       The city has since compiled a list showing those entities that paid the $500 fee and where they would be operating.
       As a public service to its readers, the Westside Pioneer obtained the list from the city and extracted the Westside-area applications. A total of 51 license applications had Westside addresses, 39 of them for dispensaries. That list is here.
       Note 1: The original city list showed three types of licenses - a “medical marijuana center” (typically called a dispensary, where the goods are sold), a “medical marijuana-infused product manufacturer” (which makes products, such as baked goods and oils) and a “medical marijuana cultivation optional premise” (where the plant is grown). Only the locations of the centers and manufacturers are provided here; the city is keeping the premise locations confidential for security reasons.
       Note 2: The list does not necessarily reflect currently operating medical marijuana enterprises, either because they didn't submit an appplication and/or because that information is not precisely known (the city not having made the commercial provision of medical marijuana a permitted use as yet). According to Ken Lewis, head of City Code Enforcement, city regulation is complaint-based - if illegal drug activity is suspected, the complaint is turned over to City Police's Metro, Vice and Narcotics unit; if zoning violations are reported, such as illegal signs or trash, Code Enforcement will get involved. At such times, he said, code officers will also check the distance regulation based on the ordinance passed by City Council in June, which required dispensaries to be no less than 400 feet from schools or daycare centers.
       Note 3: It is not known when the city will act on the applications. According to City Clerk Kathy Young, “The city has to introduce and pass an ordinance which will regulate these businesses. The state must develop applications and rules, from which our ordinance will [be modeled], since we cannot impose something different than the state has enacted.”
       Note 4: Phone messages were left with the Colorado Springs Medical Cannabis Council, requesting input to this story, but these had not been returned by press deadline.

Westside Pioneer article