The name appeared out of nowhere, unfamiliar to the players who have worked for months to influence how recreational marijuana will be regulated in Colorado.

On March 28, someone named Matt Taylor hired high-powered lobbying firm Axiom Strategies to work on “marijuana issues,” records show. Taylor has since expanded his lobbying team to rival that of anyone with a stake in adult-use marijuana legalized by Amendment 64 in November.

“No one knows who he is, and with a name like that, no one has been able to find out much,” said Joe Megyesy, who lobbies for a law firm that specializes in marijuana and for the Marijuana Policy Project, the main funder of the Amendment 64 campaign. “I haven’t seen anything like it — but we’ve never seen anything like Amendment 64.”

Colorado’s marijuana mystery man, it turns out, describes himself as a former Marine and failed race-car driver who made his wealth in home heating oil on the East Coast and wants to get in on the ground floor of a budding industry worth untold millions in his home state.

Big spender

The appearance of a new, big-spending character comes at a key moment as Colorado enters unchartered territory of legalized pot. Disparate interests and unlikely alliances are trying to shape the rules that will determine who can enter a highly lucrative business and how the market will be structured.

Marijuana interests — led by medical marijuana business groups and dispensaries — already have paid at least $137,475 to lobbyists in the fiscal year that began in June, a Denver Post analysis found.

And the real battle has not begun: Bills in the General Assembly to establish rules for recreational pot have yet to be introduced, and fewer than three weeks remain in the session.

One issue has proven especially controversial: whether to let recreational pot stores and commercial growers operate independently.

Momentum has shifted to that approach, a turn away from medical marijuana industry rules that require growers and sellers to be part of the same company and for stores to grow most of what they sell.

On the side of at least starting with the medical model is an unlikely alliance of medical marijuana business groups, law enforcement and a citizens group seeking to restrict the recreational industry.

Those advocating for a more open system are strange bedfellows, too: a labor union, activists, smaller medical marijuana business interests — and the mysterious Mr. Taylor.

The issue first arose publicly in a working group of a task force appointed by Gov. John Hickenlooper. The working group backed making shared ownership of grow operations and retail stores optional.

Rep. Dan Pabon, D-Denver, the panel’s co-chair, said voters made clear they wanted marijuana to be regulated like alcohol, which has a three-tiered system of manufacturers, distributors and retailers.

“The purpose of that is to prevent monopolies and cartels and a small amount of interests owning the industry,” Pabon said. “Primarily, that came out of Prohibition, where mobsters and the black market were prevalent. And we didn’t want to make that same mistake — to have legitimized drug dealers and thugs running our system.”

The full task force reached a different conclusion. The group recommended the medical marijuana industry’s regulatory model, noting that industry officials, law enforcement, and state and local regulators all advocated for it “to ease implementation and enforcement and to demonstrate to the federal government that Colorado is sticking with a regulatory model that has worked.”

A swinging pendulum

The pendulum swung back in the other direction April 8.

A legislative committee, spurred by Pabon, voted 7-3 to endorse allowing recreational pot stores and growers to operate independently. Lawmakers also shrunk the window in which medical marijuana businesses would have exclusive access to seeking recreational pot shop licenses, from one year to three months.

Medical marijuana interests and law enforcement were suddenly on defense.

“I don’t think the general principles of supply and demand should apply to something like this that is still against federal law,” said Greenwood Village Police Chief John Jackson, legislative chair of the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police. “We are in the infancy of this here, and we are deciding to turn the faucet wide open.”

Christian Sederberg, an attorney who helped write Amendment 64, said he supports requiring common ownership of grow operations and retailers for a “minimal period of time” to give regulators time to adapt. Other large dispensary interests stress they don’t want to make the structure permanent, either.

Meg Collins of the Cannabis Business Alliance — which includes dispensaries, lawyers, doctors and others — argues that the approach also will make the federal government less likely to intervene.

“I don’t look at it as us trying to preserve a monopoly,” she said. “I look at it as us having been in the business trying to make sure we remain in the business, and that the Department of Justice does not make an example of Colorado.”

Marijuana entrepreneur-in-waiting Matt Taylor hired a team of six lobbyists — one more than the Medical Marijuana Industry Group — to argue otherwise.

Business success

Taylor, 47, said he was born and raised in Colorado, attended public high schools in Denver and Metropolitan State College, then joined the Marines and was deployed to Iraq and the Pacific.

He said he worked in semiconductors and software in California, then made an ill-fated venture into racing Corvettes and Vipers.

His business success, he said, came with a New Jersey biofuels company called Shintan Inc. The company’s CEO, Galvin Glover, said Taylor turned the company around, made it a lot of money, divested his shares in February 2012 and moved on.

Taylor said he does not know exactly what he wants to do in the marijuana business but has no interest in being a retailer.

His lobbyists argue the medical marijuana structure constrains supply and makes it tougher to track product.

“Do I want to be the next Google or Facebook of marijuana?” Taylor said. “I want to be able to be the best legitimate business operating in that industry that has transparency, that the public approves of and feels is actually operating in the community as a community partner. … I would like to be a model for legitimacy.”

Taylor said he has no partners or investors. He said he lived in Denver while commuting to his East Coast job — important because under the proposed rules, any marijuana business owner must be a Colorado resident for at least two years. Records show Taylor is an active Colorado voter registered as a Republican.

“I’m just a businessman trying to make his way into a business that apparently the other business owners don’t want anyone else in,” he said.

Michael Elliott, director of the Medical Marijuana Industry Group, said his group is disappointed collaborative efforts to create an effective regulatory structure “were subverted at the 13th hour by a new, anonymous and well-financed player.”

Taylor does not think he has been that influential.

“If you ask me what my lobbyists have gotten me,” he said, “it’s gotten me an interview with you and a big bill.”

Staff writer Karen E. Crummy contributed to this report.

Eric Gorski: 303-954-1971, egorski@denverpost.com or twitter.com/egorski

Where they stand

Key players and lobbying dollars disclosed to date on marijuana issues. So far, the legislative session has featured three bills impacting the medical marijuana industry. Bills that will set rules for recreational pot are expected to be released anytime. Those in favor of at least starting off the recreational industry with a “vertical integration” system, meaning growers and sellers are part of the same company, and stores grow most of what they sell:

Medical Marijuana Industry Group

Trade organization with 50 members, many larger businesses.

Lobbying expenditures: $37,250

Sweetwater Partners

Medical marijuana business considering the recreational market, according to its lobbyist. Cannabis Business Alliance member.Lobbying expenditures: $21,000

Cannabis Business Alliance

Another trade group, including dispensaries, lawyers, doctors.

Lobbying expenditures: $20,000

Gaia Plant-Based Medicine

Medical marijuana business, interested in moving into recreational marijuana. Owner Meg Sanders served on the Amendment 64 task force. CBA member.

Lobbying expenditures: $17,975

Vicente/Sederberg law firm

Represents marijuana interests, helped write Amendment 64.

Lobbying expenditures: $5,000

Smart Colorado

Citizens group that supports strict regulation, heavy taxation, ban on TV, radio and online ads. Hired Sandra Hagen Solin and former congressional candidate Mike Feeley as lobbyists.

Lobbying expenditures: $7,500

Interests opposed to vertical integration in launching the recreational pot industry

Matt Taylor

Businessman interested in recreational marijuana.

Lobbying expenditures: $5,000; more lobbyists hired since last disclosure cutoff.

Cannabis Alliance for Regulation

Smaller medical marijuana business interests.

Lobbying expenditures: $1,000

United Food and Commercial Workers Union

Organizing marijuana industry workers in 12 states including Colorado. Mark Belkin, organizing director of UFCW Local 7, said the union opposes vertical integration as “protectionism.”

Lobbying expenditures: None to date.

Neutral on vertical integration

Marijuana Policy Project

National lobbying group and main funder of Amendment 64. Group is now “agnostic” on vertical integration after originally supporting it, its lobbyist says.

Lobbying expenditures: $20,000