Marijuana sales in Cripple Creek? Voters will decide next month

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Cripple Creek voters will decide next month if they want to legalize the sale of recreational and medical marijuana in city limits.

If voters in the small gold-mining and casino community of around 1,200 residents approve the initiative, Cripple Creek would be the first Teller County municipality to allow marijuana sales.

Campaign proponents say the measure would boost the city's revenues, which have taken a hit since casinos closed for several months in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The city's budget depends heavily on revenue from tourism and its casinos, and money from gaming device fees hasn't rebounded back to pre-pandemic levels, even though the City Council increased device fees in April.

A boost in Cripple Creek's coffers from marijuana sales could help fix local roads, sewer and water infrastructure, and could help address parks and recreation needs, among others, Kyle Blakely previously said. Blakely is the registered agent of Cripple Creek Wins, a citizen group that submitted the initiative petition advocating for the issue that city leaders ultimately chose to refer to voters.

"This would help diversify the city's revenue to avoid a situation like in the pandemic, when the casinos had to shut down and the revenues dropped," Blakely has said.

Some elected officials in Teller County have spoken against allowing marijuana sales in the city, saying Cripple Creek is too small to address emergency, law enforcement and public health needs they say would follow if voters approved the measure.

Sheriff Jason Mikesell has said allowing pot sales would increase the need for emergency services response, increase the cost for law enforcement regulation and response, and would increase hospitalizations.

The Sheriff's Office is "already dealing with" public safety issues from marijuana, Mikesell has said. "I don't know how we deal with it exponentially if we're selling it legalized up here at a much higher dosage than somebody can grow at home."

Blakely said legalizing pot sales in Cripple Creek wouldn't "significantly increase the use of cannabis" locally.

"They're looking at it as if nobody up in that area uses cannabis today," he previously told The Gazette. People he and other petition-gatherers spoke to who already use the drug say they're buying it in Pueblo or Manitou Springs, he said.

Allowing sales in Cripple Creek would "provide additional revenue that could provide services to deal with those issues," Blakely said previously. "They're looking at dealing with it now without those revenues."

Teller County Commission Chairman Dan Williams has said since there is no state regulation on marijuana potency, that could increase the negative health effects some users might experience.

"This is not like (3.2%) beer or 80-proof alcohol," he told the Cripple Creek City Council during a public meeting in August. "So you have no idea what's going to happen to the folks that come up here."

Voters will also have to choose whether to approve a proposed 5% excise tax imposed on unprocessed retail and medical marijuana as well as processed products. Funds from that tax are proposed to go into the city's general fund, with 25% of all marijuana excise tax revenue going to promote tourism marketing for the city.