Boulder leaders seek to avoid new hemp business moratorium

BOULDER — Earlier this year, Boulder city officials began exploring the development of a series of regulations that would require hemp cultivators and processors to be licensed much like marijuana growers. The COVID-19 outbreak has since stretched city manpower thin and slowed down the process, but Boulder City Council members said Tuesday that they hope the result isn’t a de facto moratorium on new hemp businesses. 

“In the 2020 budget, [the] council approved additional employees to support the regulation of all cannabis products, including marijuana and hemp,” according to a city memo. Staff has not filled those positions and does not intend to do so in light of the city’s severe financial challenges as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Without additional staff, the Boulder City Attorney’s office recommended existing staff process licenses — which could include provisions to limit odor, require spacing of at least 500 feet between hemp grow operations and beef up safety requirements — for the city’s existing 55 hemp businesses and delay processing new business licenses until next summer. 

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These regulations could effectively halt new hemp operations from opening up shop for more than a year. 

In an effort to avoid this result, Boulder City Councilmen Aaron Brockett and Bob Yates suggested Tuesday an alternative strategy that would allow new hemp businesses to open prior to 2021, so long as operators acknowledge that they could be subject to additional regulations not currently on the books. For example, if a 500-foot buffer rule is enacted, a new hemp business operating right next door to a similar operation could be forced to move. 

“That shifts the risk to them and protects us if the primary concern is distancing,” Yates said. “But it allows us not to impose an arbitrary moratorium.”

Boulder staffers are expected to present a full plan for new hemp regulations and the licensing process on June 16.