Joint Venture: Too legit to quit?
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"Take advantage of it," says Bob McGowan, professor of management at the University of Denver's Daniels School of Business. "I'm not a Boulderite, but from a business standpoint, why not? Why refuse a new revenue stream?"
There's big emotion on both sides of the dispensary debate, but those in the middle take a more pragmatic path. They include commercial landlords who have finally found responsible tenants for long-vacant buildings, lawyers, accountants and website designers who cater to new businesses and publications buoyed by new advertising. The alternative weekly Westword is packed with cannabis ads and has a medical marijuana writer. The state's largest newspaper, the Denver Post, began accepting such ads in August.
Then there are people like Dana May's business partner, Cameron Telfer, who uses his years of above-board contracting to design and build grow rooms, which can cost anywhere from $1,000 for a small, in-home room, to $25,000 for something much larger.
"I hope this is headed to a well-defined, reasonably regulated, mainstream business," he says. "Nobody would blink an eye if you said, ‘I'm opening a Walgreens down the street from a school.' This should be the same way."
There are 14 states with medical marijuana laws on the books, but Colorado is the only one where it is part of the state constitution. Advocates wanted to give it the force of the state's highest law to keep government from fiddling with it too much, and so far, the strategy has worked.
When Centennial tried to shut down CannaMart and ban any others, it was soundly spanked in court. In overturning the city's action, Arapahoe County District Judge Christopher Cross acknowledged that cannabis was illegal under federal law but protected under the state constitution. Cities can enforce zoning laws, he said, but they must uphold state law, not enforce federal ones.
"The voters have spoken," Cross said. "It is not a criminal act in the state of Colorado."
But it has become clear that some people weren't aware of the implications of their vote for Amendment 20 nearly a decade ago. At a community meeting in the Stapleton neighborhood in northeast Denver, the scent of not-in-my-backyard hung heavy in the air - nothing against medical marijuana, just not in the space formerly occupied by a kid-friendly coffee shop, Perk & Play, which closed in the fall. The new tenant, 5280 Wellness, would be grandfathered in under the Denver City Council's new restrictions, which meant it could operate even if it is found to be within 1,000 feet of two nearby schools.
Nearly 100 people turned out, but the new dispensary owners weren't among them. City Council members Michael Hancock and Carol Boigon came to speak and answer questions, as did Romer, arriving late from a similar community meeting across town.
"We need an adult conversation about this," Romer said. "We need to get control of a business model that has spun a little out of control."
It wasn't going to be easy, he told the group. Law enforcement and medical cannabis supporters seemed unwilling to compromise. "There aren't enough votes in the (Statehouse) to shut down all these dispensaries," he said, adding that he wouldn't want to do that, anyway.
There are definitely people on the registry who don't belong there, Romer said, and just as surely, thousands with a legitimate need and a constitutional right to their medication.
"I'm not going to force them back into back alleys," he said.
Most of the opposition seemed to spring from a fear of the unknown, something the City Council struggled with as well. "We don't know what these dispensaries will mean to our community," Hancock said.
But Greenway's Escamilla believes time and responsible business practices will allay any fears.
"Their concerns are warranted, but the only way to overcome them is through day-to-day operation, doing things right," he says.
Doing things right means different things to different people. Down on South Broadway in Denver, the number of medical marijuana dispensaries now rivals the number of antique shops.
Ralph and Heidi Morgan's Evergreen Apothecary shares a building with an insurance agent. Inside, it's bright and modern, with an expansive front window and glass shelves that eventually will display a variety of natural products.
Patients go up the stairs and through a locked door to the actual dispensary, where jars hold fragrant buds of cannabis sativa and cannabis indica with names like Sour Diesel, Northern Lights Haze and Purple Kush - $50 to $60 for an eighth of an ounce.
Both Morgans have backgrounds in health care, so this business seemed like a good fit, one that could be both professional and compassionate. They took Greenway's course - "A high tide raises all boats. Greenway is a surge in the tide," Ralph says - and visited other dispensaries to determine what patients they could best serve.
"Our niche was people who were really looking at this as a wonderful alternative to a stew of narcotics," Ralph Morgan says. "They've got MS, they've got fibromyalgia, HIV - people who haven't been smoking marijuana as a lifestyle but have been considering it as an alternative to heavy-duty narcotics."
One of their first customers was a Vietnam vet who came in with a plastic grocery bag filled with 26 different narcotics; another was a retired surgical nurse with multiple sclerosis. Medical marijuana proved transformative for them both. Those are the stories that resonate for the Morgans and make the risk worthwhile.
"This industry's extremely volatile. This could all just be shut down in a week," says Ralph Morgan, who supports reasonable regulation. "It will evolve, and it needs to. But too many people are aware of the legitimacy of it. It's not going away."
Steve Horowitz of Ganja Gourmet
Three blocks south at the Ganja Gourmet, $30 will get you the Dinner Buzz Special: meat or veggie laganja (lasagna) or Panama Red pizza, a dessert - brownies, anyone? - and a specially blended joint.
This could be the meal that never ends.
"Talk about killing two birds with one stone!" Jay Leno joked on his show.
Owner Steve Horowitz hopes at some point, he'll be laughing all the way to the bank. Since opening in December, business hasn't been all that brisk, despite the growing demand for cannabis and plenty of media attention for the Ganja Gourmet.
He understands why people are apprehensive about the proliferation of dispensaries.
"Sure, it is pretty weird with all these businesses popping up with the big neon marijuana leaves," Horowitz says. "It's definitely a big jump from an illegal product to a product that's being advertised so aggressively. But the good news is, it's going to grow. And people are going to get used to it."
And while he's waiting for that to happen, Horowitz has no doubt the state is going to leave dispensaries open.
"My biggest problem today is figuring out how to pay the sales tax I have due on Thursday, and it's a big number," he says. "Dispensaries are the only thing doing business in this economy, and we're helping people on top of that. I think we'll be regulated, and that's fine. I'm all for having rules to follow."
The Ganja Gourmet takes a somewhat light-hearted approach to the business: All the employees wear wildly tie-dyed shirts, and a giant poster of Mona Lisa smoking a joint the size of a cigar gazes serenely down at the patients who choose to eat their cannabis-laced cherry cheesecake at the counter.
"Our food is fantastic," Horowitz says. "Even if it wasn't medicated, it would still be fantastic.
"I think that I'm absolutely set to succeed."
Lisa Ryckman is the online editor at cobizmag.com.
Readers Respond
It's time that those who use marijuana for medical reasons be dealt with more compassionately. Whether the plant is a cash crop or not is irrelevant to the question of medical need. Perhaps the state of Colorado will consider investing in the harvesting of such a medically beneficial plant.
By amsterdam red light district on 2010 03 17Please read this short history of how it was that cannabis came to be criminalized in the US - http://www.drugwarrant.com/articles/why-is-marijuana-illegal/. The comments by the representative of the AMA are particularly informative.
By Paul in Colorado on 2010 03 01Leave a comment
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