Superior blazes trail toward legal weed sales

SUPERIOR — Spark it up, Superior — retail cannabis sales are now allowed in town limits. 

“We’ve seen 10 years of (the legal recreational marijuana industry) in Colorado and the state isn’t worse off because of it. Superior needs to get with the program,” Superior Mayor Mark Lacis said Monday night when the town’s Board of Trustees approved an ordinance that sets the conditions for dispensaries to potentially open up shop in the eastern Boulder County community. 

Superior officials decided in 2013 to ban cannabis sales, cultivation and production businesses. Erie is the only other Boulder County jurisdiction with such a prohibition.

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Despite Monday’s unanimous decision by Superior’s Board of Trustees to allow for the possibility of two licensed retail marijuana businesses in town, officials warned that it could be some time before any pot shops welcome customers. There is a process to this,” Mayor Pro Tem Neal Shah said.

The Board of Trustees will vet applicants, who must also obtain all relevant state approvals, and will function as Superior’s local licensing authority. 

“A store can’t be within 1,000 feet of a school or other regulated marijuana store,” the memo said. “A store owner must submit a plan, with the application, for ventilation of the medical marijuana store that fully describes the ventilation systems that will ensure the odor of marijuana cannot be detected by a person with a normal sense of smell at the exterior of the medical marijuana store or at any adjoining property. Background checks are required as part of the licensing application process.”

Superior staffers estimate that each dispensary could add $30,000 annually in sales tax receipts to city coffers.