Lafayette next to try to limit caregivers

Lafayette softens medical marijuana rules as final vote nears - Boulder Daily Camera

LAFAYETTE -- The City Council loosened some regulations in its proposed medical marijuana ordinance Tuesday night -- allowing dispensaries to stay open an extra two hours and permitting up to a dozen plants per household -- as it entered the homestretch in its regulatory process.

But the heart of the regulations -- limiting medical marijuana centers to a 75-acre district on the south side of town and a 3-acre parcel near 119th Street -- was left unchanged.

The council unanimously approved the regulations on a first reading and is scheduled to make a final vote March 29.

The zoning restrictions, which place dispensary-free buffers around schools, hospitals, day-care centers and highway corridors, would force Lafayette's two existing pot shops to move.

Just hours before Tuesday's meeting, however, the owner of one of the city's dispensaries said she was on the verge of signing a lease on a space in Plaza Lafayette, a strip mall on South Boulder Road that falls within the city's proposed medical marijuana zone.

Even so, several residents voiced strong disapproval for the proposed rules, accusing the city of crafting them from a foundation of fear and ignorance rather than logic and understanding.

"I think you are deliberately ignoring the medical patients of this city," medical marijuana patient Trevor Lyle told the council. "These are arbitrary distances, and you've found no real complaints except for that it's a tad bit stinky. We are paying attention, and we are voters."

Rachel Gillette, a Lafayette resident and attorney, questioned why the city was proposing to place an 800-foot buffer along U.S. 287 where dispensaries can't locate. Ka-Tet Wellness Services, which is located on the busy highway corridor, would have to move because of the distance restriction.

Councilman Stephen Kracha said he wasn't certain he agreed with making U.S. 287 off-limits to medical marijuana dispensaries and hoped to explore the issue at greater length at the city's next meeting.

It may not ultimately matter to Alison Neeld, Ka-Tet's owner, who said that earlier in the day she had received a letter of intent from the landlord at Plaza Lafayette to lease her a space there.

Half of the strip mall is in Lafayette's proposed medical marijuana district while half is not. Neeld said she is confident her new storefront would fall just inside the appropriate zoning area.

"I just want to be here in Lafayette and provide safe access for my patients," she told the council, her eyes welling with tears.

The council spent much of its time wrestling with the issues of hours of operation and patients' maximum allotment of marijuana in their private residences.

Resident Daniel Matthews addressed the council members, telling them that the plan to limit households to six marijuana plants when the state allows that many plants per patient would invite "a huge, huge litigious situation."

He said it would effectively bar a married couple with medical marijuana cards from growing the amount of medicine they are allowed to grow under the Colorado Constitution.

Mayor Pro Tem Jay Ruggeri agreed that section of the ordinance was too restrictive and suggested allowing up to 12 marijuana plants per dwelling unit. His motion carried.

Kracha spearheaded the effort to bring Lafayette's rules on hours of operation in line with state law, which allows dispensaries to operate from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. The city's ordinance had proposed allowing the businesses to be open between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m.

"We're cutting off an hour on the front and an hour on the end, and I don't really see a reason for it," he said.