Colorado mayor offers cannabis advice

Legalized recreational marijuana likely is coming to Tucumcari and Quay County. The mayor of Trinidad, Colorado, passed along some advice to the region after the experiencing the effects of legal weed in his community.

“Be very careful how many (marijuana dispensaries) you allow in your community,” Trinidad Mayor Phil Rico said in a telephone interview last week. “Be careful how close you put them to educational facilities. Be very careful if you have a historic district and how you control that. Be careful with your application process and make sure it’s completely thorough.”

The New Mexico Legislature during a special session last month passed a recreational marijuana bill that Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signaled she would sign. Under the measure, licensed cannabis sales would begin no later than April 2022, and the state’s Regulation and Licensing Department will begin issuing such licenses by January.

That means Tucumcari and Quay County might see legal weed by the first half of 2022. With neighboring Texas considered unlikely to legalize marijuana soon, that could mean a substantial amount of pot tourism from the Lone Star State and other states where it isn’t legal.

Colorado voters legalized recreational marijuana in late 2012 and was one of the first states to do so.

By Rico’s estimation, 26 marijuana-related businesses have set up shop in Trinidad, a town of about 8,000 people 15 miles from New Mexico’s north border.

Trinidad has one dispensary per every 300 residents — by far the heaviest concentration of weed-related businesses in Colorado.

The town’s dispensaries come with names such as The Spot 420, The Green Solution, Strawberry Fields, The Other Place is Greener, Lucky Monkey Buds, Canna City, Highland Health and Tweedleaf.

Rico, a lifelong Trinidad resident who became mayor about five years ago, acknowledged the sales tax revenue from marijuana has been good for city finances.

Reports on Trinidad’s website reveal it received more than $2 million in marijuana sales-tax revenue in 2017, the first year it was reported.

In the first three quarters of 2020, the city used more than $3.5 million in those sales taxes for dozens of expenditures, including a new brush hog, police and fire department equipment, city computer upgrades, COVID-19 relief to businesses and residents and a new HVAC system in city hall.

But Rico acknowledged drawbacks to legal weed, as well.

“What it has attracted is a lot of homeless people and people standing on the corners, asking for money,” he said. “Our homeless population has increased, and I attribute that somewhat to the legalization.”

When asked about weighing the pluses and minuses of legal marijuana, Rico sighed and paused several seconds before answering.

“From the financial side, it’s good,” he answered. “But from the social part, it has not been good because we’ve had some people, especially in the grocery store areas, have been in some confrontations with these people coming out of the store ... people begging and even some attacks.”

Rico said he was not aware of the extent of marijuana-impaired driving in Trinidad but acknowledged there is some, though such cases are difficult to prove.

He said Trinidad also was not prepared the amount of interest from marijuana entrepreneurs.

“It was sort of a Wild West show at the beginning,” Rico said. “It was very open. We had to put a cap on (applications). We had 46 to 47 applications for marijuana and more than 100 various types of applications.

“You have to be careful with the numbers, or you can get overrun,” he added. “It created a mountain of paperwork for our staff at city hall.”

Rico said it wasn’t unusual for a single recreational-marijuana application to total 200 pages once zoning and other requirements were accounted for. With multiple partners setting up shop, the page count could reach 400.

He said the city also tried to shield its historic district from weed shops.

“We wanted it to be more of a family-type atmosphere and not the bad smells (from marijuana),” Rico said. “That bad smell does create a major problem. For the historic district, we wanted to make sure that did not happen.”

Rico said smoking rooms not only create problems just from marijuana’s odor, but also liability issues. As an example, he said a police officer who has to go into a smoking room while on duty might jeopardize his job because such exposure might cause him or her to flunk a drug test.

Rico expressed skepticism Tucumcari would have marijuana dispensaries open by next spring. Based on his town’s experiences, he estimated it would take 18 months to two years.

Despite the village of San Jon being less than 20 miles from Texas, Mayor Billie Jo Barnes said last week she was unaware of interest from pot-related businesses wanting to set up there.

Patrick Vanderpool, executive director of the Tucumcari Economic Development Corp., said last week he was unaware of recent interest from marijuana businesses.

“We’ve had a couple of folks come in and look at opportunities at putting dispensaries in, but it’s been some time since we’ve had anybody who’s asked that question,” he said. “I expect some probably will, but not recently.

“I fully expect people are going to try to figure out how to take advantage of the opportunity, and rightfully so.”

Tucumcari City Manager Mark Martinez also said Wednesday he also was unaware of any recreational marijuana company wanting to come to town. But he said the city commission needs to be prepared for that eventuality.

“One thing I think we’ll have to do as a city commission is how we’ll do things on our end,” he said. “We can’t keep anything out, but the city may want to restrict it to certain zoning areas. We’ll have to see where that goes.

“This is new for all of us,” Martinez added. “It’s my assumption (an eventual city ordinance) is going to be similar to alcohol — so many feet from a school, churches, whatnot. It’s something we’re going to have to adapt to.”

During a meeting Thursday, City Commissioner Ralph Moya said he received inquiries about possible retail locations for the sale of legalized cannabis. (See city commission story in this edition.)

Martinez added that he considered the arrival of recreational marijuana businesses in Tucumcari as inevitable.

“It’s coming,” he said.