AS AMENDED a bill for an ordinance amending the Denver Retail Marijuana Code and the Denver Medical Marijuana Code to provide for a waiting period before new applications can be received or acted upon within a 1,000-foot radius of a location where a license has been denied or an application has been withdrawn following scheduling of a hearing. Establishes a waiting period for re-application for a license for certain marijuana businesses that are denied an application or in certain cases when applicants withdraw. The Committee approved filing this bill at its meeting on 5-1-17. Amended 05-15-17 to clarify that the one-year waiting period for reapplication for medical marijuana center license or a retail marijuana store license in circumstances where a prior application was withdrawn after the setting of a public hearing on the application but prior to a final decision by the Director of Excise and License is measured solely from the date the prior application was withdrawn.
Okay. Next Monday, May 22nd. This will be a one hour courtesy public hearing. Thank you, Councilman Lopez. All right. Madam Secretary, can you pull up the next item? Believe it's five. They're good. 523. Councilman Espinosa, since Councilman Flynn will be offering an amendment, please put Council Bill 523 on the floor. I move that council bill 523 be ordered published. All right. It has been moved and seconded. Councilman Flynn, go ahead and offer your amendment. Thank you, Mr. President. I move that council bill 17, Dash 523 be amended in the following particulars. Make the following change on page two. Lines 3 to 6, page two, lines 25, 228, page three, lines 22, 23 and page four. Lines 9 to 12. Strike the words the directors scheduled a public hearing for an application for a retail marijuana store license or a medical marijuana center license. And the application was subsequently subsequently withdrawn prior to final action by the director on the application and substitute the words the same or another applicant previously withdrew an application for a retail marijuana store license or a medical marijuana center license after the scheduling of a public hearing on the application, but prior to final action by the director on the application. All right. It has been moved and seconded. Comments. Thank you, Mr. President. This bill provides, among other things, a one year waiting period of before a particular applicant who withdraws an application subsequent to setting of a hearing and subsequent to setting in motion all of the neighborhood organizing and petitioning and canvasing. If that applicant withdrawals before there is a final decision, it provides a one year waiting period before that particular applicant can reapply for that particular real life particular location. This amendment to clarify some wording that created a little bit of ambiguity as to when the clock started on that one year. The intent is that the clock starts from the date of the withdrawal of the application and not any prior trigger as well. And so I ask that the folks, my colleagues on the council here support that that one technical change that changes nothing of of substance in the bill itself. All right, Councilwoman Sussman. Thank you, Mr. President. I see it. Malia's in the room, and I have a couple of questions. I missed the marijuana committee meeting. About this, so. This gives me a little bit of an opportunity to ask some questions about this bill in the in the word the same or another applicant. What is what is another applicant? Is that like the friend of the original applicant or what is the meaning of that? Good evening, counsel. I appreciate being given the opportunity to make comment. I know this is Councilman Flynn's bill. My interpretation of that of that bill and of course, defer to Councilman Flynn is that any other applicant that wants to go into either that particular location or within 1000 feet, it doesn't have to be related to the original applicant. So the application follows the the location and not the I mean, that the license follows the location and not the person. The cooling off period follows the location and not the person. Not the person. Okay. Is that correct? All right. The other question I had is, when I look at this, it says, if the applicant has withdrawn, they've set they've set a time for a hearing, but they withdraw it prior to the final action of the director. What if they set and set a hearing and then withdraw and. And suppose that the hearing, the neighborhood was in support of it. But then they decided for some other reason to withdraw it. There's nothing in here that says that gives an applicant who might withdraw for reasons not related to a neighborhood, you know, needs and desires hearing. Or suppose that the construction plans didn't come through or other reasons why an applicant might withdraw before the final hearing. Again, the length I interpret the language of the bill to there is no reason imposed on the on the withdrawal of the application if it's set for a hearing and then subsequently withdrawn for whatever reason, it would trigger that one year cooling off period. But the proposer has a. Mr. Carter. Mr. Carter. Sure. Go ahead. Councilwoman. The there are many options available to an appeal. If an applicant only merely has to has a construction delay or some other factor. Withdrawal usually isn't the option. What they would do is ask for a a continuation or a postponement of the hearing. There's plenty of other avenues available to do that. Usually you wouldn't see a person withdraw. The intent of this, though, as to provide a quiet period for the neighborhoods of one year. Unlike in the liquor code where there's two years for a denial because the neighborhood already will have gone through the stress, the conflict, sometimes the tension , the effort, all volunteer of canvasing if an applicant withdrawals and then reapply a month or two later. All of that neighborhood effort, all of that neighborhood expense and volunteering is down the drain and they have to do it again. So that's why this bill asks for a one year wait before they can reapply. But in the event that there's an issue with construction, the the avenue of recourse would be to ask for a postponement, which is something that's up to the director's discretion. I'm sure it's happened before. I know it's happened. I know it's happened before. That's correct. It has occurred as an applicant. Ask for a postponement if the neighborhood was favorable. Towards the location. Oh, am I asking the wrong. No, I just. Yeah, just wanted to. Okay. Is it? Is it? It could a could an applicant withdraw? Even though they had I mean, can they ask for a postponement if they had an unfavorable needs and desires hearing? They and Councilman Brooks thinks that David is the person to answer that. David Broder, did you not draft this ordinance? Yes. And I'm going to continue to defer to the sponsor on the answers, but I'd be happy to take a stab as well. The the in the situation you're describing, I think, Councilwoman, it's is probably very much in line with what Councilman Flint is anticipating. If someone has gone through having a hearing said it's a it's a contentious hearing, he's facing the possibility of denial. But the executive the director of excise license hasn't acted yet and then just suddenly withdraws it. Right. The councilman's intent in proposing this entire approach is kind of having put the neighborhood through the meat grinder for there to be a period of time before someone can reapply. In precisely that scenario, when there's. Been an adverse experience at the at the at. The public hearing. But the director hasn't quite acted yet. And again, I would defer to the sponsor if he he would like to add to that. I completely understand the reason for, you know, a delay of this kind to right the year delay. But what I've just heard that the applicant has a way to postpone if there's a construction delay or something like that. So he doesn't have to withdraw. Is that postponement option also available to the applicant who has received an unfavorable response from the neighborhood? And if it's if it's an option, isn't everybody allowed that option before the before the director makes a ruling. And to clarify before kicking it back tomorrow. This bill doesn't address the postponement options that may exist under current rules and procedures and so forth. And Marley can address what those rules and ground rules are, but just how this bill doesn't affect postponement scenarios at all. Marlee And I can say, just from having handled these types of hearings and worked with exiles for four years, that that never happens. For starters, once they go through the hearing, they don't try to withdraw an application. However, if if someone went through the actual hearing and went through that headache and then wanted to withdraw, we would recommend a decision would still be issued by the hearing officer and the executive director would still issue a final decision. So we would be back into the scenario of the two year cooling off period. They did go through a hearing and were. Either denied or, you know, in this scenario they would have been denied. It's the same law that we have for liquor, liquor as a two year cooling off period for a withdrawal. Correct. No. There is no no such cooling off period for withdrawal, only. If after. A unfavorable hearing. Okay. So this is an additional obligation on a marijuana shot or contender, I guess it's not like the liquor law. That particular portion of it is not like the liquor law. Also, liquor is a 500 foot perimeter around the location. So that's not like a liquor law either. Correct. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Counselor Lopez. Well, more of a comment, so I don't know. Councilwoman Ortega, do you have a question? Come mine is a comment on customer Lopez. Thank you, Mr. President. You know, I. I do understand the line of thinking, and I do appreciate that the questions I mean, I'm only chiming in to speak because I'm very familiar with the with the hearing process when and when it comes to liquor licenses and liquor stores. And and when you compare those with actual retail or retail marijuana code and and obligations that we have set, well, the regulatory obligations that they have set for them in front of them and have seen both hearings. This is definitely something that I support only because and there's a lot of ways that this is worked out. And, you know, when when we said it was regulated marijuana like alcohol, there's a lot of things that are and there are a lot of things that don't to the benefit of the industry. And so as what what I've come to experience is that, you know what, we've we've we're actually regulating it, right? We're regulating a substance, right. When we do it with marijuana. I mean, it's the liquor code is antiquated and there's a lot of problems there. But, you know, here we have a direct impact and we're able to count to 13 and and become more efficient. I love my folks over here at the on the other side of the Civic Center Park. But. And try passing a bill over there to modify anything like this. And it's a three ring circus sometimes. And good luck if you can do it in that. I just wanted to say, this is good legislation. It's the right thing to do. Seeing an application get defeated. Or. Something like this, it takes a lot of work in the community. It takes a lot of work from the applicant, a lot of resources on their end. Think about it. They have somebody representing them at that. You know, it's it's a heck of an effort. And that cooldown, I think, is is a good nuance. It's a good opportunity for folks to, you know, recalibrate. And then it also allows any applicant and community to work together because for most of the part, most of the time, they're just little disagreements that people have kind of drawing themselves in their corner over. And they really didn't have the ample time or the trust or the good faith on both sides to actually meet and confer and say, hey, look, this is something that we'd actually would like to work out and reach before it even comes to a hearing. So what this does is it allows folks to recalibrate. And in that recalibration, you actually have a better dispensary, a better license, and a community that actually has ownership over that process as well to it. And that's what the whole community process was designed for, is to improve where we lack on the liquor code. Unfortunately, it takes a heck of a lot more over there to change. So being that I do support this moving forward, this is one of those times where I think this regulation is a lot better than what we do with alcohol. Thank you. Councilman Lopez. Councilman Ortega. So I'm just making comments. I don't have questions, but I was at the agency meeting this Saturday. This topic came up. They took a vote in support of the amendment that Councilman Flynn was working on, including a discussion about this very point. And they referenced an application in the Sunnyside neighborhood. This one was for liquor. It wasn't for marijuana, where an applicant actually withdrew their application as they were going through the hearing process and then turned around and refiled a new one. And the concern is that the neighborhoods don't have the same resources that many of these industry folks do. And to scramble and get the signatures that are required to request a public hearing to organize the community, it takes, you know, a huge undertaking and particularly in neighborhoods that don't have the. The organization that others have. And so I think this is a reasonable request, the fact that there is no cooling off period at all for marijuana. And knowing that we do have one for. For liquor only make sense and knowing the one for liquor is two years. I don't know why we wouldn't support the same, but the request is for a year. So I'll be supporting this tonight. Thank you. This borrower. Again, I would defer to Councilman Flynn if he wishes to comment. But let me just be clear that this has exact parallelism to the liquor code. On the issue of a case where the application went to a hearing and was denied based upon a finding of lack of needs and desires, from the standpoint that that does create a two year blackout, as Ms.. Budowsky indicated. It is for a larger. Radius than the liquor code, but it still has that same element. In cases where the application went to a denial. The the new element in this. Bill is the other scenario where the application is simply withdrawn. That's only. A one year waiting period. And only for the property in question, not for a larger radius. So again, I want to be really clear about the contents of the bill. Some of it is parallel to the liquor code and some of it is not. And by the way, a good time to also say that under state law, you have a lot more discretion to set marijuana policy. A lot of what we live with in liquor policy is prescribed by state law, is immutable at the local government level. But thank goodness on the end, on the marijuana side, we do have more policy flexibility to kind of blaze our own trail, as this bill illustrates. Thank you. Councilman Flynn. Thank you, Mr. President. Just a quick note. Amendment 64 that legalized retail marijuana said that it should be regulated similar to liquor, but it didn't say identical. So I wanted to point out that the differences are 1000 feet and 1000 feet was used in my bill, because a thousand feet is consistent with the separation from prohibited locations simply to be more consistent within the marijuana section of the code in the liquor code. The distance from of separation from prohibited locations, meaning schools, daycares, etc. is only 500 feet. Therefore, the cooling off period is but 500 feet in liquor. I wanted to keep it consistent within the marijuana code and use the thousand feet basically on South Broadway. Councilman Clarke It's the difference between three quarters of a block and a block and a half. And I also want to point out that this provision, although it's not in the liquor code for a quiet period when one withdrawals , I wanted to thank Councilman Lopez I'm sorry, Councilwoman Ortega, for bringing up the Sunnyside example. The prohibition on reapplying applies only to that location, not within a larger radius. And. And. Well, that. So that's it? Yes. It only applies to that particular location. Another applicant can come in at that same address. The same applicant can't can come in at that same address. My hope and intent is that we will see what many of us up here have asked for and primarily Councilman Herndon have asked for more genuine community outreach and engagement and having cooling off periods where we do not have any right now. My firm belief is that this will encourage the industry to reach out in a more genuine fashion to neighborhoods so that they don't have to run the risk of incurring these waiting periods. Thank you. All right. Thank you. It has been moved and seconded. Madam Secretary, roll call on the amendment. Flynn. Hi, Gilmore. I heard in Cashman. Kenny Lopez. I knew, uh. Ortega, I. Assessment I. Clark, I. Espinosa. Hi. Mr. President. I police the voting and as a result. 12 eyes. 12 eyes. The amendment passes now, Councilman Espinosa. We need a motion to publish as amended. I move the council bill 523 be ordered. Published as amended. All right. It's been moved in. Seconded. I'm sorry. I have to get the. Comments by members of the council, council and clerk. Thank you, Mr. President. I'm sorry I came in a little late. I wanted to comment on the bill as a whole. Not the amendment. But I just wanted to quickly thank Councilman Flynn for bringing this forward, for finding this hole, for helping close this gap, having just gone through with the community of mine, petitioning and canvasing effort on a license, I, I did not realize or could not imagine what would have happened had this loophole been taken advantage of. But I'm very I'm thrilled that we're closing it. And thank you, Councilman Flynn, for bringing this word. Happy to support it. Thank you, Councilman Espinosa. I, too, want to thank Councilman Flynn for finding this and bring it forward, I think is evidenced by the support for extended hours that we just recently passed in my district and citywide. You know, the industry has proven to to sort of be capable of taking whatever we throw at it, being adapting to it and coming up with a better way forward. I think in those rare instances where you can't fine strike a balance and compromise the community, I do think it's a bit taxing to sort of have that ability to just keep trying it different ways. I'd much rather have a sort of negotiated compromise or this quiet period, so I think I'd rather see it two years, but one year is great. So with that, I'll be I'll be supportive. Thanks. All right. Thank you. Thank you. The president, just real quickly, a finding that there is no need or desire in the surrounding neighborhood for a liquor store or for a marijuana store needs to have a shelf life. You can't suddenly have a need or desire for a marijuana center two days after it was just found that you do not. And that is the entire basis behind matching the liquor code with this quiet period, cooling off period. Thank you. And asked for yes votes. All right. I think I think you can get them. All right. It's been moved and seconded. Madam Secretary. Rocco. Flynn. I Gilmore. I Herndon. Cashman. Commit. Lopez. I knew. Ortega i. Sassaman, i. Clark, i. Espinosa. Mr. President. I pushed Kosovo and as a result. Of. 12 eyes. Constable. Five 2523 excuse me has been ordered, published as amended. All right. All other bills for introductions are ordered. Published. We're not ready for the black vote on resolutions and bills for final consideration. Council members remember, this is your last. This is a consent or bloc vote when you will need a vote. Otherwise, this is your last chance to call. And I don't want to provoke. Councilman Espinosa, will you put the resolution for adoption and the bills on final consideration for final passage on the floor? I move that resolutions be adopted and bills with one final consideration be placed upon final consideration, and do pass in the block for the following items. All Series 17 03980467047705020504045704580459046004870496050505030548. 04340462046404650468. 046905080308032804200 500 0428042904300431044690447. Oh. Right. It has been moved in. Seconded. Madam Secretary, recall. Clerk i Espinosa. I Flynn. I. Gilmore. I did I Cashman. I can eat Lopez. I knew Ortega, I says. When I was president. I saw the voting nance results. 1212 hours resolutions have been adopted and bills have been placed upon final consideration do pass to night. There will be a required public hearing on Constable 362 changes on classification for 689 West 39th Avenue, 700 West 40th Avenue and 725 West 39th Avenue.