Medical marijuana shops sprouting across the region

Watch out as you drive down West Colorado Avenue these days. You might get a contact high.

From Interstate 25 to Old Colorado City, you’ll pass a medical marijuana dispensary on almost every block. Businesses like The Healthy Connection and Altitude Organic Medicine — “home of the $39 special” — can make you feel like you’re in pot head heaven.

But for residents and business owners in the midst of the business boom, their presence has raised eyebrows and often ire.

“It’s no longer West Colorado Avenue, it’s West Cannabis Avenue,” said  Jim Lamphear, who lives a block north on Pikes Peak Avenue. Lamphear chuckled to himself when he saw the first dispensary pop up because he figured every neighborhood would have one. But he’s not chuckling any more.

“They just came suddenly: boom, boom, boom. Soon enough, every time a storefront opened up you knew what was going in there.”

Lamphear and his wife, Ella, bought their historic home 38 years ago — back when they say the neighborhood was rundown and their friends and family questioned the move. Now after years of renovating their house and making an immaculate backyard garden, they’ve been delighted to watch other neighbors follow suit and upgrade the neighborhood one home at a time.

He worries the dispensaries could turn off potential buyers and erode the home values he and his neighbors have worked to raise.

“Like any business that operates on the fringe of morality, like adult bookstores and topless bars, dispensaries threaten the neighborhood concept,” he said.

Lamphear’s neighborhood isn’t the only one that has been inundated with dispensaries. As of July 29, the City of Colorado Springs had active sales tax licenses for 230 dispensaries. While there are dispensaries in virtually every neighborhood, West Colorado Avenue, East Platte Avenue and the area circling the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs are among a handful that have several dispensaries apiece.

A comprehensive interactive map of local medical marijuana dispensaries is available at gazette.com.

Tanya Garduno, director of the Colorado Springs Medical Cannabis Council, said dispensary owners are trying their best to be good neighbors. Many post signs warning customers to be quiet and respectful outside of the business and not to litter. When the council receives complaints, Garduno said members follow up to make sure everything is going as it should. She said the council would love to meet with neighborhood groups to discuss their concerns face-to-face.

“We will make every effort possible to do what we can,” she said. “We’re not trying to be fly-by-night. We’re not trying to get rich quick. In order to be here for the long run, we have to be good neighbors.”

Still, she said, she knows that there will always be unhappy people.

“Sometimes, no matter what the dispensaries do, the neighbors won’t be happy,” she said. “A lot of times, it’s that they don’t like the business itself.”

Lamphear admits that might be part of the problem. He hasn’t noticed an increase in crime and admits that it’s a bit reassuring to know where marijuana is being sold in his neighborhood. Still, he wishes the dispensaries weren’t allowed in residential neighborhoods.

Soon enough, he fears, the friendly, small-business feel of West Colorado Avenue will change beyond recognition.

Not everyone in the neighborhood shares those fears. Firehouse Southern Style BBQ on West Colorado Avenue is across the street from a dispensary, and Firehouse general manager Peter Karnincic said he has no problems with his new neighbor. He hasn’t noticed an increase in crime or decrease in business since it moved in.

To be friendly, and drum up business, he even stopped by to say hello.

“I gave some of those guys our menu so if they get the munchies they can come over and eat,” Karnincic said. He said a few have taken up his offer.

Six blocks west of Firehouse, Jug & Basin Antiques owner Joe Roina isn’t so enthusiastic. His customers are mainly tourists and antiques collectors, two groups that he believes might be turned off by dispensaries. Also, he objects to them as a resident — he and his family have lived at the store more than 30 years.

“We’re scared that it’s going to bring a clientele that is not conducive to family life,” he said. “I’m not happy. We raised our kids in this house and I feel for the other kids out there.”

On Pikes Peak Avenue, homeowner Becki Davis doesn’t see what all of the fuss is about. She has no problem with medical marijuana, in fact, she thinks marijuana should be legalized. Yes, there are a lot of dispensaries in the area, she said, but they aren’t hurting anyone.

“We have liquor stores in our neighborhood and nobody seems worried about those,” she said.

In time, she suspects the dispensary inundation on West Colorado will cure itself. Soon enough, most of the dispensaries will disappear as customers flock to bigger and better places.

“Natural selection,” she said. “Hey, that would be a good name for a pot shop. Maybe I should open one.”

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Contact the writer at 636-0274.

WHO'S in BUSINESS & WHO'S BUYING

• As of Aug. 1,  about 105,000 people have applied to the state registry for cards allowing them to use medical marijuana — which amounts to roughly 2 percent of the state’s population.

• About 32,000 Coloradans have received their official medical marijuana ID cards in 2010.

• 717 people have applied for a state dispensary license with the Colorado Department of Revenue’s medical-marijuana division.

• 271 people have filed applications for a marijuana-products business

• 1,071 applications were filed for marijuana-growing facilities

• The 2,059 total applications for medical marijuana-related businesses brought in more than $7 million in fees.

— THE DENVER POST AND DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE RECORDS