Longmont City Council: Pot Shops What: Longmont’s City Council will resume discussions of issues relating to possible repeal of the city’s ban on marijuana businesses. When: The marijuana issue is an item on the council’s 7 p.m. Tuesday study session agenda. Where: Civic Center Council Chambers, 350 Kimbark St., Longmont Further information: The full study session agenda, including links to the staff memo about the marijuana ban, can be viewed at bit.ly/2nNggt5

Longmont’s City Council on Tuesday night is to resume discussions of whether to lift the city’s ban on shops selling marijuana inside the city limits.

At issue: whether to have the city staff proceed with steps toward possible revisions or repeal of Longmont’s current prohibition against any shops that sell medical or recreational marijuana.

Longmont banned medical marijuana dispensaries in 2011 and recreational marijuana shops in 2013. While there are no legally operating pot shops operating inside Longmont now, there are two on the city’s edges in unincorporated Boulder County — Native Roots, near the South Sunset Street Bridge, and Green Tree Medicinals, northeast of Colo. 66 and Main Street.

The City Council has discussed pot-shops issues at a number of previous meetings over the past year, and the city staff is seeking further direction during Tuesday night’s study session.

In one of last year’s discussions, the city staff recommended that if Longmont does allow pot shops, the city should only permit shops that sell marijuana products for recreational use, and not those that sell only to medical-marijuana patients.

That, the staff reminded the council in a memo for Tuesday night’s meeting, was partly because state regulations for medical marijuana sales “are more onerous and complicated,” and because the city could charge its own additional tax on recreational marijuana sales — but could not tax medical marijuana sales.

Also, medical marijuana can only be sold to people 18 years old and older, while recreational marijuana can only be sold to people age 21 and older, “thereby potentially limiting illegal resale to minors” if the city were to limit pot shops to recreational-marijuana businesses, the city staff said.

Another yet-to-be-resolved issue is the total number of pot shops Longmont might allow, if it does repeal or partly lift its ban. Previous discussions have indicated a council majority might favor capping the number of shops at four.

Location, taxes, among considerations

If the council wants to proceed toward formal future consideration of permitting pot sales from a limited number of marijuana-sales shops, there still are questions about where those shops could or should be located, the city staff noted.

The staff asked the council to consider such questions as whether such establishments should be geographically dispersed — or whether land-use and zoning requirements and the market for the product be relied on to determine appropriate locations.

The staff also asked the council whether Longmont locations that now are the sites for sales of other retail products would be appropriate for marijuana sales, as well, if the pot-sales ban is lifted, and whether there are any specific locations that would not be appropriate for retail marijuana establishments.

Tuesday’s meeting may also give the staff informal direction about whether the council is interested in asking voters for a city sales tax on recreational marijuana purchases, if pot shops are allowed, and whether the council would want to consider additional licensing and operating fees for those types of establishments.

Yet another issue: whether Longmont wants to go beyond state marijuana business licensing requirements and set stricter rules of its own.

During a Feb. 28 council meeting, Mayor Dennis Coombs floated — but later withdrew, pending the discussion now set for Tuesday night — a possible motion to have the staff draft an ordinance that would allow a limited number of marijuana dispensaries to operate in Longmont as long as they were located outside the core downtown area and acceptable distances from schools.

High demand expected for licenses

In its memo for Tuesday night, the city staff reported that the Longmont Downtown Development Authority found in a survey of 93 downtown business owners that nearly 55 percent opposed allowing four or fewer retail marijuana shops inside the LDDA boundaries; the other 45 percent gave some level of support for the idea.

The city staff said that prior to Longmont’s imposition of its 2010 ban on medical marijuana businesses, there were seven such dispensaries operating inside the city.

The staff said that based on inquiries it already has received about the potential lifting of the ban on retail marijuana businesses, it assumes there would be a relatively high demand from businesses seeking city marijuana licenses.

Longmont could consider using a request-for-proposals process to determine which businesses could apply for a city license, the staff suggested, or could use another process — like a lottery, an auction, or a first-come-first-served system — to consider and approve qualified applicants.

Last year, a city survey found that 31 percent of the people responding said they”strongly” supported allowing limited sales of recreational marijuana in Longmont, 25 percent said they “somewhat” supported it, 11 percent sid they “somewhat” opposed it and 11 percent aid they “strongly” opposed it.

The city staff said in its memo that it assumes the council, in addition to whatever tentative directions it may decide during the study session, may also desire to have “additional input from the broader community on this topic” before having a marijuana ordinance drafted for formal council consideration.

The staff proposed conducting an on-line community survey, a “community discussion” in a public forum, interviews with “stakeholders,” or a combination of those approaches.

John Fryar: 303-684-5211, jfryar@times-call.com or twitter.com/jfryartc