Medical marijuana grow limits: Denver city council moves them ahead to advocate's chagrin
Yesterday, a special issues meeting of the Denver City Council considered medical marijuana grow limits in residential areas. And as Colorado Coalition for Patients and Caregivers' Robert Chase predicted, the proposal moved forward. Now, the full council is likely to consider the restrictions next month, and Chase, who belittles members as "pandering scum," predicts limits will pass despite a dearth of evidence that they're necessary.
Robert Chase.
Chase was among a handful of MMJ advocates who attended the meeting, and while public participation wasn't officially on the agenda, he says he was allowed to briefly tout an alternate proposal. While councilwoman Jeanne Robb wants a limit of twelve plants in residential zones, he instead suggested growing areas in homes, apartments and so on be restricted to eighty square feet. However, he says council members weren't receptive owing to reported conflicts with the city's new zoning code.
Also weighing in, says Chase, were numerous officials and inspectors, who talked about potential dangers like booby-trapped grow houses of the sort that are said to exist in Canada; real-estate sites like this one and this one warn about the alleged threat.
Jeanne Robb.
Council members "are seized with the absolute necessity of acting," Chase maintains. "They talk about how many people this affects. But except for Jeanne Robb's friends on 7th" -- Robb told Westword she proposed regulations after spending months trying to get rid of a sizable 7th Avenue residential grow -- "there haven't been a lot of complaints."
Be that as it may, Chase says the special issues committee is expected to take another look at the issue again prior to final consideration before the city council as a whole, likely on October 25.
At that point, the public will be allowed to comment on what Chase calls "a welter of confusion. They claim to have four different ideas on the table, but from my perspective, they're all moving more or less in lockstep. It's just a very slow and confused process."
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