Commerce Metropolis desires to impose some order on its marijuana sector.
Practically all of its retail hashish shops are situated within the southern half of town — with a number of clustered shut collectively and extra on the best way — and elected leaders there need to unfold the wealth.
In the end, they need to restrict how a lot there may be to unfold of the trade’s affect, whether or not good or dangerous. They’ve proposed an eventual cap of eight shops within the metropolis, cut up evenly between two sides of city.
“When you hit a saturation level, it’s not good for the shops and it’s not good for the neighborhood,” stated Sean Ford, a former Commerce Metropolis mayor and present councilman. “We watched Denver with the Inexperienced Mile, and we have been apprehensive that that’s what would occur right here.”
The Inexperienced Mile, a reference to the proliferation of pot retailers that opened on South Broadway within the early days of leisure legalization, has already arrived in Commerce Metropolis — albeit on a smaller scale — within the view of Mayor Steve Douglas.
“You’ve gotten pot retailers, one after one other,” the mayor stated of a trio of hashish retailers clumped collectively in a half-mile stretch of busy North Quebec Avenue, close to Dick’s Sporting Items Park.
Commerce Metropolis authorised retail gross sales of marijuana in 2015 however by no means set a restrict on the variety of shops.
Altogether, there are eight marijuana retailers in south Commerce Metropolis — usually delineated because the older and fewer prosperous a part of town, under East 96th Avenue. Licenses for 3 extra are already authorised.
In contrast, only one store is working within the northern tier of town, which is basically characterised by master-planned suburban neighborhoods constructed within the shadow of Denver Worldwide Airport.
That focus of marijuana companies within the metropolis’s south prodded the Metropolis Council in the summertime of 2023 to put a yearlong moratorium on any new hashish retailers opening in that a part of town. It renewed the moratorium for an additional six months this previous summer time.
The town’s new proposed ordinance requires a restrict of 4 retailers within the south and 4 retailers within the north, utilizing 96th because the dividing line. In actuality, these limits might not be absolutely in pressure for years, on condition that town has no plans to revoke any licenses.
However south shops that shut wouldn’t get replaced with new ones till the entire quantity falls under the four-store cap.
The council handed the measure on its first studying Dec. 16. A remaining vote is scheduled for Jan. 6.
“You may have too many dry cleaners, you may have too many vehicle components locations,” Ford stated. “Why do we’d like a pot store on each nook?”
By comparability, he stated, Thornton limits the variety of marijuana retailers to 4 — and it has a inhabitants twice as massive because the practically 70,000 individuals who name Commerce Metropolis house. Brighton, which simply legalized hashish gross sales this yr, additionally has a restrict of 4 shops citywide.
Douglas, the present mayor, stated Commerce Metropolis experiences hundreds of thousands of {dollars} a yr in retail and restaurant gross sales “leakage” to different communities as a result of it doesn’t have sufficient business operations for the fast-growing metropolis. One other weed retailer isn’t going to fill the bellies of a household in search of dinner out at a restaurant, he stated.
“We try to fill these gaps with the lacking piece of retail and business,” he stated.
Truman Bradley, government director of the Marijuana Business Group, stated the times of a Inexperienced Mile-style focus of marijuana retailers are over. The trade has seen vital gross sales decline in recent times following the short-lived increase in enterprise through the coronavirus pandemic.
“Now that we have now a mature market, we have now a greater thought of what demand is,” he stated.
Commerce Metropolis’s geographically bifurcated method to hashish regulation is as reputable as another method cities or counties have taken, Bradley stated.
“I feel Commerce Metropolis is doing the best factor by evaluating whether or not their licensing mannequin works for his or her neighborhood,” Bradley stated. “It’s not one-size-fits-all.”
The prospect of fewer pot retailers in Commerce Metropolis doesn’t hassle Garrett Yamashiro, the final supervisor of Starbuds on Dahlia Avenue. His retailer sits proper subsequent to a LivWell marijuana storefront, a vestige of the years when Commerce Metropolis had no distance separation necessities from one retailer to a different.
The town put in place a 1,000-foot, store-to-store buffer final yr.
“We’ve seen a decline in site visitors, a decline in spending,” Yamashiro stated, noting a 28-30% drop in foot site visitors from 2023 to 2024. “It doesn’t really feel prefer it did 5 years in the past.”
Commerce Metropolis took in simply over $2 million final yr in tax income from marijuana gross sales. It has collected simply over $10 million since gross sales began practically a decade in the past.
Ford, who grew up in south Commerce Metropolis and has served on the council for practically a quarter-century, stated he was prepared to forgo some tax income to spice up town’s general financial well being — and the well-being of the store house owners working in an more and more tough atmosphere for the hashish trade.
“These companies are having to compete with one another,” Ford stated. “I’d quite see a number of doing very well as an alternative of 10 failing.”
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