The Orchard City Town Board adopted an emergency ordinance at a special meeting Nov. 18. The trustees and administration believe it will effectively stop anyone from starting a “medical marijuana dispensary” in the town for the next six months.

There is already at least one dispensary operating in Orchard City: Grand Mesa Herbal Dispensary LLC in Eckert, which established itself as a limited liability corporation with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office in July.

Mayor Don Suppes had intended to propose a moratorium on the tax-free, wholly unregulated dispensaries in December. But recent developments across the quickly changing landscape of the medical marijuana issue had threatened to leave the town an oasis for new dispensaries amid a desert of moratoriums.

The Board of County Commissioners last Monday had adopted an emergency resolution placing a moratorium on the dispensaries in the county’s unincorporated areas. Other communities in Delta County have also adopted their own moratoriums.

With the prospect of becoming the last community around where dispensaries could set up shop before their window of opportunity slammed shut, Suppes decided to call the special meeting and propose the moratorium ordinance, which the board adopted on a 6-0 vote.

The moratorium ordinance provides for “the imposition of a 180-day moratorium on the submission, acceptance, processing, and approval of applications for town permits and licenses relating to the operation of medical marijuana dispensaries.”

Other than its review and approval of 3.2 beer carry-out licenses and franchise agreements with utilities, the town currently has no procedures in place for regulating or licensing business. When asked about that, Town Administrator David Varley explained that the town does have the statutory authority to license and regulate businesses and that the ordinance draws upon those powers to declare the moratorium.

If there is a suspected violation of the ordinance, the town also has no jurisdictional police agency to enforce it. When asked about that, Suppes replied by taking some words from a former mayor: “I guess, then, that I am the chief law enforcement officer of the town,” he said.

If the town decides to adopt regulations for medical marijuana dispensaries, will that provide an opening for placing rules and fees on other Orchard City businesses? That question will be on the minds of many of the town’s home-based business owners who operate now in Orchard City’s entrepreneurial market freedom with no interference from restrictions or fees imposed by town hall. And there is strong sentiment in the town to keep things that way.

About five and a half years ago, Town Hall created a massive outcry among residents when a set of new regulations was proposed that would have placed “site development standards” on businesses in the town.

A special meeting was hastily called to hear the outpouring of protest, and a visibly angry audience of Orchard City residents filled the town board room to overflowing. Fifty more people stood in the parking lot outside the hall to listen and register their displeasure.

Some of those people from almost six years ago are sitting on the town board now, and the memory of that evening is still vivid.

The stated purpose of the moratorium is “to allow the town to investigate Orchard City’s ability to license and regulate such businesses,” and to put regulations in place to control them. Communities all around the state have taken the same moratorium approach to the proliferation of medical marijuana dispensaries. It is likely that whatever regulations, if any, Orchard City decided to adopt will be similar to ones that other communities adopt.

The moratorium ordinance also states that, “The town attorney shall tender other options available to the town.” Varley explained that sentence as meaning one of the options for regulation might be for the trustees simply to state that no business which violates local, state, or federal law will be allowed to operate in the town.

Though “medical marijuana” is legal under Colorado law, possession of marijuana, medical or otherwise, is a violation of federal law.

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