Pueblo City Council again delays decision on retail pot sales

A Pueblo city councilman explained why the decision about whether to allow retail marijuana sales has dragged on and likely will continue to do so.

Steve Nawrocki spoke Tuesday, a day after the council again extended its moratorium on such sales.

Nawrocki cited three factors behind the delay: illness, a resignation and a threat of two recalls making it difficult for the council to have the four votes necessary; a lack of a plan for regulating the drug; and consideration of placing retail pot shops in selected industrial areas where manufacturing, growing and testing businesses already have been approved by the council.

“We’re going to look at the map of those industrial areas and see if we can make that work,” Nawrocki said. “We asked for 60 days, which would take us through the end of February.”

Nawrocki said he also wants more cooperation from the city’s planning and zoning office, which has resisted allowing recreational marijuana sales.

“I have a responsibility to try and reach some kind of compromise in order to have some of that available,” he said. “But at the same time, I want to respect the rest of the citizens who don’t want it on every corner.”

In related matters, the council extended by a year its moratorium on marijuana smoking shops and may consider easing restrictions on medical marijuana shops.

Nawrocki said about 60 percent of Pueblo voters supported Amendment 64 which made recreational marijuana legal in Colorado.

“I think it’d be a good idea for the city council to approve it,” said resident Scott Griffith. “It’d bring good revenue to the city.”

But another resident, Leslie Maes, disagreed.

“I think they should vote against it,” she said. “I think it’s wrong because it’ll take what our town is made of, and just bring it down.”