LAFAYETTE -- For those wanting to sell medical marijuana in this city, opportunity looks like a swath of mostly vacant land on the south side of town where nondescript office buildings mingle with aging strip malls. LAFAYETTE -- For those wanting to sell medical marijuana in this city, opportunity looks like a swath of mostly vacant land on the south side of town where nondescript office buildings mingle with aging strip malls.

Lafayette's proposed medical marijuana district could be on the way to becoming a reality, with the City Council set to vote on new medical Tuesday. But will dispensaries be welcome here?

Reaction from those already running businesses in this 75-acre zone seems to run the gamut from indifference to staunch opposition.

"The smell, the clientele, what it brings to the area -- it would interfere with my business tremendously," said Larry Stallcup, owner of The Bingo Mine inside the Plaza Lafayette on South Boulder Road. "My customer base is 55 and older and they don't buy into that sort of thing."

Stallcup, who served as Lafayette's chief of police in the 1970s and 1980s, said a dispensary near his bingo hall would be the final straw.

"As a matter of fact, I would move my business," he said.

Just a few doors east in the shopping center, however, Vision Quest Martial Arts chief instructor Christopher Spann doesn't have any qualms about a store selling medicinal pot nearby.

He equates it to a liquor store being granted a license to operate.

"I don't think it's going to be like, 'Oh you're the karate school near the pot store,'" said Spann, whose clientele is largely made up of kids. "As long as it's a legitimate business and they run it like a legitimate business, I don't really have a problem with it."

Lafayette, which is in the midst of crafting rules for medical marijuana centers, has touched off consternation among industry advocates as it tries to figure out where to allow the facilities.

Last year, the state passed legislation that gives municipalities the power to stipulate where medical marijuana centers can set up shop. Colorado voters legalized medical pot 11 years ago.

Under Lafayette's proposed rules, no dispensaries would be permitted within 1,000 feet of schools, hospitals and other medical marijuana centers; within 500 feet of residential areas and day-care centers; or along U.S. 287 and Colo. 7.

That leaves a 75-acre area largely centered on South Boulder Road -- between South Public Road and U.S. 287 -- open to the businesses. There's also a 3-acre parcel on the northeast side of town, but there is no infrastructure or utilities there.

The owners of Lafayette's two dispensaries, both of which would be forced under the regulations to close their current locations in Old Town and at Black Diamond Plaza on U.S. 287, have complained that there are few landlords in the proposed medical marijuana zoning area willing to lease space to them.