Medical marijuana dispensary The Clinic buys day-care center that delayed Highland opening

9News

The owners of a Highland day-care center, who objected in June to The Clinic, a medical marijuana center, moving into the neighborhood, sold their business and building to the MMC earlier this month, allowing the pot shop to finally open their doors last Saturday after a two-month delay.

The Clinic was just days away from opening their new location on West 32nd in June when owners of All In A Day's Play went on 9News to complain that the MMC was just 800 feet from their doors -- 200 feet shy of the 1,000 feet mandated by state law. That oversight caused the dispensary delay their opening indefinitely until something could be figured out.

At the time, the MMC's owners were being hush-hush about what had happened. But we've since caught up with general manager Ryan Cook, who gives us his take on the strange sequence of events. Cook explains that the problem began when The Clinic and All In A Day's Play submitted their applications to the city around the same time. Cook says the day-care center wasn't open at the time the Clinic purchased their building, nor when he was going through the initial licensing phase.

Ryan Cook (from NPR.org).

Due to a runaround with the Denver Department of Excise and Licensing over modifying the building, Cook says the center's opening was pushed back until late June. During that time, the sign for the day care went up and city inspectors got a tip that the MMC would be 200 feet shy of the 1,000 feet limit.

In their interview on 9News, the day-care owners said the MMC would be a detriment to the neighborhood and pointed to safety concerns for not only the children they watched, but all children in the area . "I think it could hurt the general neighborhood," one said. "Parents looking to move in might think twice if just down the street is a dispensary."

Never mind the numerous liquor stores, restaurants and bars along the strip. It was this one dispensary that the day-care center's owners couldn't stomach.

"At that point, there wasn't much we could do," Cook says. "We really hoped at the time that we could have an open dialog with the day care." When he was finally able to meet with them, in August, they were respectful, "but clearly not changing their minds." The meeting ended with the day-care owners saying they would think things over and get back to The Clinic owners.

A week later, Cook got a call from a broker wanting to know if The Clinic was interested in purchasing both the daycare and the building down the street. The deal was reasonable enough and would make it possible to finally open their long-delayed MMC. So he accepted the deal.