The city of Grand Junction has received 47 applications for recreational marijuana business licenses, and is now going through the process of narrowing the field to 10.
Grand Junction City Clerk Amy Phillips said the application period went well, with a lot of activity in the 0ast week.
“It’s the beginning of an interesting process,” Phillips, who started as the clerk in the middle of the application period, said. “The ladies in the clerk’s office have been wonderful, they’ve really worked hard.”
Deputy City Clerk Janet Harrell oversaw the application process for the clerk’s office.
Completed applications were due June 8, and the ones that have all the required components will move on to the review committee.
“We are in the process of going through them as fast as we can,” Phillips said.
The review committee is made up of representatives from city departments.
Applicants must have insurance, have a property in which to have the store, have a sales tax license for the business, pass background checks, have a security plan, have a business plan, have a plan for keeping underage people off the premises, have a plan for disposing of unsold cannabis, have a ventilation plan, disclose their financial interests and pay application and licensing fees.
After the review committee is done, the applications that are still moving through the process will each have a public hearing.
City Council appointed attorney Stephanie Rubinstein as the cannabis hearing officer at its June 1 meeting.
After the public hearings, the remaining applications will be put into a lottery to see who gets each of the 10 licenses available from the city.
Recreational marijuana stores are not allowed on the ground floor on Main Street from First Street to Seventh Street, or in buildings that contain residential units, and a maximum of two stores are allowed in the Horizon Drive Business District.
Some residents have expressed concerns about the application and lottery process favoring larger recreational marijuana chains at the expense of locals.
“We would hate to see all the opportunity go to big outside shops,” Joey Coleman, a local CBD business owner who said he intended to apply for a recreational license, said.
Coleman noted local owners would not only create tax revenue for the city but spend their money here as well. “More money comes back to the community with local owners,” he said.
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