Oak Creek Town Board denies marijuana grow license transfer
Steamboat Springs — At its Thursday meeting, the Oak Creek Town Board denied, 3-2, a medical marijuana grow license transfer between two Northwest Colorado businesses.
Trustees Bernie Gagne, Johrene Meyers-Story and Wesley Woodford opposed and Dawn Smith and Wendy Gustafson voted in favor of the motion, which would have charged $1,000 for Elevation Wellness Center, a grow operation in Oak Creek, to transfer one of its four licenses to the Craig Apothecary name.
Skyler Hartman, who owns Elevation Wellness Center, and Shaun Hadley, the Craig Apothecary owner, first appeared before the board two weeks ago because Hadley wanted to grow the product for his Craig location at Hartman’s warehouse. The board tabled the motion so town attorney Bob Weiss could look into it.
In his letter to the Town Board, Weiss advised them to table the matter once more because he had incomplete information about the licenses and was hesitant about the conflict between the town ordinance, which prohibits a transfer, and state law, which allows transfers and could supersede town ordinance.
Some board members and mayor Nikki Knoebel said they were satisfied with the information provided by the two businesses.
Weiss’ concerns were the reason for the three nay votes.
“I don’t feel comfortable with this without more information from Bob,” Meyers-Story said.
“It Bob’s opinion that everything right now is not totally transparent, to him, anyway,” Woodford said. “I have to rely on his opinion because he knows a lot more about it than I do.”
Gagne said although he sympathized with the business’ urgency to make the transfer and start the process of state approval, he thought denying the transfer was the right legal move.
In other action, the Oak Creek Town Board:
Delayed without a motion the approval of Mary’s Medical transfer of an optional premise cultivation license from the Mary’s dispensary to the business’ grow house at 209 Nancy Crawford Boulevard. The board agreed with Mary’s partner Josh Scruggs that waiting until after the November vote on a medical marijuana center ban would make Mary’s options more clear.
Approved, 5-0, new employee job descriptions for town positions.
Went into executive session for about a half-hour to discuss legal matters relating to the wastewater treatment plant. The board said after the executive session that they plan to send another letter to Jacob’s Engineering in response to a letter of claim sent by Bob Weiss in June.
— To reach Nicole Inglis, call 970-871-4204 or email ninglis@SteamboatToday.com
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