How two small cities became Colorado marijuana kings in the Denver metro area
Edgewater and Glendale are separated by more than the 10 miles between them.
Edgewater is the very picture of suburbia, with its quiet collection of modest, single-family homes perched along tree-lined streets on the western shore of Sloans Lake in Jefferson County.Glendale is a hard-charging, commercially focused city defined by apartment living, mid-rise office and hotel towers, strip clubs, strip malls and a world-class rugby stadium.
But both Glendale and Edgewater, with 11 recreational marijuana dispensaries and counting between them, now rank as the leaders in the metro area for the number of pot shops per capita.
How they came to share the title of king of the weed shops, however, unfolded in very different ways.
We hit the ground running, said Edgewater city manager HJ Stalf. We adopted everything well before the opening date (of legal recreational marijuana sales in Colorado).
That opening date was Jan. 1, 2014, and Edgewater had already embraced the notion that it wasnt going to sit out what three years later has become a $1 billion-plus industry in Colorado.
We didnt go out and actively recruit, but we created a structure that allowed it to succeed, Stalf said.
That included allowing stores to locate without separation buffers from one another, and most critically, permitting shops to remain open until midnight. With Denvers more than 150 recreational pot shops required to close at 7 p.m., those extra hours have given Edgewater a built-in late-night market and a competitive edge.
That advantage, however, is not assured in perpetuity. Just last week, the Denver City Councilsmarijuana special-issue committee began discussions on extending the hours of operation for pot shops in Denver.
The best benefit of having a dispensary in Edgewater is the hours, said Ben Loblick, assistant manager of Green Dragon Cannabis Co. We get busy after 7 p.m., which is closing time in Denver.
Green Dragon sells weed in Edgewaters tiny downtown district, right across the street from the police station.
Across town, Glendale followed a less deliberate path to establishing a recreational pot industry inside its borders. Deputy city manager Chuck Line said the citys five pot shops with two more in the pipeline came about more by happenstance. While its perhaps not surprising a city with the kind of laissez-faire, business-friendly environment Glendale is known for would one day host a robust retail marijuana scene, it took time.
The market kind of took care of it for a while, Line said.
The citys first recreational marijuana dispensary didnt open until January 2015 and the cityonlyfinalized its cannabis regulations in November, which also allows shops in the city to do business until midnight.
But Line was intrigued enough by the potential economic benefits of the nascent pot industry early on that he actually ventured out on a late-night reconnaissance mission to Edgewater in the first few months of legal sales. He remembers receiving a ticket at one shop indicating that he was nearly the 400th customer that day. Line quickly crunched numbers in his head, estimating the average purchase per customer and calculating the take using Glendales 3.75 percent sales tax rate.
My impression was out of a store that is 1,000 square feet at our sales tax rates thats $309,000 sales tax revenue in one year, he said. Its just incredible.
Thats a calculation Edgewater did long ago.With the $1.4 million in annual marijuana sales tax revenue (that includes the proceeds the state shares back with communities with retail cannabis) accounting for 20 percent of Edgewaters $6 million budget last year,Mayor Kris Teegardin said the city is fully aware of the value of cannabis cash.
Revenue has definitely been very productive for us, Teegardin said.
Stalf said the citys six pot shops generate taxes equivalent to those of a big box store. Edgewater, which has a 3.5 percent sales tax rate, has used its marijuana sales tax proceeds to repave all 12 miles of its streets and is planning to dedicate future revenues to building a $10 million state-of-the-art civic center to house its city hall, police headquarters, library and recreation center.
Its a far cry from a generation ago, Stalf said, when the city really struggled to keep up.
Weve got some problems behind us that we can sustain for 20 years, he said.
While Glendales sales tax collections and state sharebackfrom recreational marijuana stores more than $1.2 million a year isnt far behind Edgewaters, it accounts for only 3.1 percent of the citys $31.7 million annual budget, given the citys well-developed commercial base.
Line said the marijuana revenue isnt dedicated to any particular line item in Glendales budget, but he believes that variety in the citys retail sector is good for its overall economic health.
Its a component that ...
