The El Paso County Board of County Commissioners voted in January to make last year’s temporary moratorium on marijuana clubs in unincorporated El Paso County permanent. The measure puts marijuana clubs in the ìprohibited useî category of the county’s land development code, and includes all zoning districts within county-controlled areas.The code amendment does not impact current businesses or organizations since it does not apply to the cannabis clubs that have already opened in Colorado Springs. However, the language makes some pro-marijuana activists and business owners nervous about how the statewide marijuana industry is being treated in unincorporated county areas, including Falcon.A marijuana club is defined by the new code as ìany organization of persons, however otherwise defined or described, formed or operated with a primary or secondary purpose of using or consuming marijuana at a common location and characterized by membership qualifications, dues or regular meetings.îAt the Jan. 6 BOCC meeting, Lori Seago, senior assistant county attorney, said, ìThere is pending litigation against at least one municipality about its prohibition of marijuana clubs. So, we’ll see what the courts have to say about that. But currently the constitutional provisions and state statutes do not address this specific land use as it relates to recreational marijuana at all.îColorado Amendment 64, which legalized recreational marijuana at the state level, specifically allows counties and cities to prohibit cultivation facilities, manufacturing, testing and retail stores. El Paso County took steps to prohibit those types of marijuana commercial businesses in unincorporated county areas within weeks of Amendment 64ís effective date.Amendment 64 does not give counties or cities authority to regulate personal use or consumption beyond the rules provided by the amendment and state statute. At the Jan. 6 meeting, Joel Aigner, marijuana business compliance analyst, said the ban on social clubs where cannabis is used by individuals ó but not sold or grown ó interferes with the amendment’s protections for private use, especially for those who rent apartments or dorm rooms and cannot otherwise consume out of public view.El Paso County is a statutory county, which means it can only perform the regulatory and legislative duties provided for in-state statutes. ìThere is no state licensing scheme or regulatory framework for marijuana social clubs,î Seago said. ìWe consequently have no authority to regulate or license these businesses outside the scope of our land use authority.î If marijuana clubs were allowed under the land use code, the commissioners would be able to establish land use rules such as setbacks, landscaping and parking but would not be able to regulate what happens inside the business, Seago said.Smoking marijuana inside a business also falls under the Colorado Indoor Clean Air Act, which was amended in 2010 to include the regulation of marijuana smoke, using the same stipulations for tobacco smoke in businesses and other indoor spaces. ìThe only exception in the state law is a hookah lounge, and it doesn’t define marijuana clubs,î said Amy Lathen, District 2 county commissioner, ìItís not currently defined, and there are issues about whether these clubs violate that law.îThe land development code amendment does not keep small groups of people from gathering in private homes or non-business spaces to consume marijuana. Jason Warf, legislative director of the Southern Colorado Cannabis Council, told the commissioners at the January meeting that the Amendment 64 implementation task force on which he served debated the issue and found that private gatherings for the purpose of cannabis consumption is legal. If there are ìfour wallsî and smoking marijuana is done ìprivately and not in view of the public, it’s completely legal,î Warf said.
