Today, Denver-based attorney Bob Hoban shares some thoughts regarding the road to HB 1284 compliance and the challenges facing entrepreneurs.

Since the passage of Amendment 20 nearly 10 years ago, Coloradans have shown an overwhelming amount of support for the medicinal use of marijuana, and, in turn, the legal community has become an integral part of a complex network of professionals that ensures a safe and legal way to help patients get their medicine.

Complicated local and state regulations, or sometimes a total lack thereof, created an instant demand for attorneys willing to help clients navigate these rules and maintain their successful medical marijuana dispensaries, grow operations and edible production facilities. Our clients, who range from young entrepreneurs to combat veterans helping those with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and family business owners, come from all over Colorado with unique circumstances relating to our firm’s areas of expertise, primarily land use and zoning disputes.

As has been stated, the passage of House Bill 1284 and Senate Bill 109 in May “wreaked havoc” in the medical marijuana business community and the unintended consequences of these overly-restrictive laws have put an unfortunate number of honest people out of business.

Our firm has helped clients, especially in the Denver area, prepare for changes that will occur as a result of Denver’s new zoning code, known as Blueprint Denver. Suddenly, properties that were zoned industrial, where medical marijuana grow operations were permissible, find themselves zoned as mixed-use residential, where their business is forbidden.

For clients involved in the edible products industry, a combination of state regulations and new zoning codes effectively bans the production of edibles within County limits. To be compliant with state law and local regulations, an edibles production facility would have to be located within a zone that permits agricultural use (to grow the medicine), industrial and or commercial
kitchens (to infuse the medicine into edible products) and also retail for the dispensing of medicine.

The reality is that no such property exists within Denver, and these businesses, now known as “Marijuana Infused Products,” or MIPS facilities, are left in limbo.

Following the July 1, 2010 deadline for initial compliance with HB 1284, our firm is now facing another deadline, August 1, 2010, by which all clients must complete further state applications and receive local “approval” for their business, most of which have already been open for months, if not years, and paying both local and state sales taxes. This is only the beginning of regulation and compliance that must be met by the end of the statewide moratorium this time next year.

Robert T. Hoban, Esq.

Hoban & Feola, LLC

Phone:  303-260-6479

Email:  Bob@HobanandFeola.com

Web:  www.HobanandFeola.com

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Denver, Colorado 80202

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