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Marijuana moratorium action explained
The Loveland City Council Tuesday night passed an emergency ordinance
placing an eight-month moratorium on the establishment of new medical
marijuana dispensaries (MMDs) in Loveland. Passed as an emergency
ordinance, it went into effect immediately.
To better understand the City Council action, an explanation of key
words and terminology in the emergency ordinance is provided here,
followed by a summary of the ordinance itself.
Terminology:
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MMDs mean “a property,
premises or structure used to sell, distribute, transmit, give,
dispense or otherwise provide marijuana in any form and in any
manner to a patient or primary caregiver.”
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A “patient” means “a
person who has a debilitating medical condition.” A debilitating
medical condition includes specifically: cancer, glaucoma and HIV;
and, more generally, any “chronic or debilitating disease or medical
condition” certain symptoms of which the patient’s physician
believes would be alleviated by marijuana.
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A “primary caregiver”
means “a person, other than the patient or the patient’s physician,
who is eighteen years of age or older and has significant
responsibility for managing the well-being of a patient who
has a debilitating medical condition.” Unfortunately, Section
14, Article XVIII of the Colorado Constitution and State statutes do
not define for us the meaning of this emphasized phrase and the
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment is still in the
process of considering a definition for this phrase. However, the
Colorado Court of Appeals has recently decided that it means that a
primary caregiver must do more to “manage the well-being of a
patient” than merely provide the patient with marijuana.
The
ordinance summary:
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The ordinance only
prohibits the establishment and operation of certain new MMDs in
Loveland for an eight-month period beginning November 18, 2009, and
ending on July 16, 2010, (the “Moratorium Period”), unless
terminated earlier by future city council action.
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Not affected by
the Ordinance are MMDs that have satisfied, prior to the Moratorium
Period, all of the following criteria: (a) have been issued a City
sales tax license; (b) have opened for business at the location
designated in the sales tax license application; (c) have begun the
legal sale of marijuana at that location; and (d) comply with all of
the City’s zoning requirements for the location.
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Also not affected
by the limitations of the Ordinance are any MMDs established and
operating before and during the Moratorium Period that are
operated by a primary caregiver who provides marijuana to only five
patients, regardless of whether the primary caregiver provides the
marijuana with or without compensation (“Small Caregivers”).
However, Small Caregivers are still required to obtain a City sales
tax license if they sell marijuana to any of their five patients and
they must comply with the City’s zoning requirements.
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In addition, those
primary caregivers who do not have physical business locations
within the Loveland city limits, but deliver to patients within
Loveland (“Delivery Caregivers”), are not affected by the Ordinance
except they must obtain a sales tax license for their marijuana
sales within Loveland.
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The City’s Sales Tax
Office will not to accept sales tax licenses applications for MMDs
during the Moratorium Period except for Small Caregivers and
Delivery Caregivers. In addition, no other City Department will
accept an application for any other license, permit or other City
approval during the Moratorium Period that may be required under the
City Code to establish and operate an MMD in Loveland, except with
respect to Small Caregivers.
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Violation by any person
or entity of any of the provisions of the Ordinance will be a
misdemeanor offense subject to maximum penalties of a $1000 fine or
one year in jail, or both. Also, each day a violation exists is
considered a separate offense and each separate offense is subject
to the maximum penalties.
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