No Denver resident would be able to grow more than 12 medical-marijuana plants in their home under a proposed ordinance that won initial approval before the City Council on Monday night.
The proposal, from Councilwoman Jeanne Robb, would place the restrictions on the number of plants that could be grown per unit only in areas zoned for residential use. Robb said the limitations are needed to keep marijuana home-grows from getting out of hand and, as an example, mentioned one such operation in her district where the homeowners were growing 70 plants in their basement.
Robb said home marijuana gardens bring risk of mold and fire, and she said the city has already been accommodating to medical-marijuana dispensaries and to growing operations in industrial areas.
“It seemed that we didn’t need to overburden our neighborhoods with medical-marijuana growing as well,” she said.
The proposed ordinance, though, has stirred the ire of medical-marijuana advocates, who fear it could put small-scale caregivers in jeopardy.
New state law allows caregivers — personalized marijuana-providers whose work is protected in the state constitution — to serve up to five patients. With each patient being allowed up to six plants, that means the ordinance could force caregivers to either rent costly growing space or find multiple growing locations.
“It would essentially eliminate the ability of a person to be a caregiver and provide cannabis for another person not living in the same house with them,” the Cannabis Therapy Institute, an activist group, warned in an e-mail.
Robb said she is willing to make changes to the proposal — and she requested the measure’s final consideration and public hearing be pushed back to Sept. 20 to allow for that — but she said she believes growing 30 plants in a home is still too many.
“We need some strong boundaries there,” she said.
John Ingold: 303-954-1068 or jingold@denverpost.com.
