{"id":8595,"date":"2018-12-28T13:51:54","date_gmt":"2018-12-28T13:51:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/?p=3300414"},"modified":"2018-12-28T13:51:54","modified_gmt":"2018-12-28T13:51:54","slug":"ridgway-the-cleaner-gateway-to-the-san-juans-thanks-to-marijuana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/ridgway-the-cleaner-gateway-to-the-san-juans-thanks-to-marijuana\/","title":{"rendered":"Ridgway: The (cleaner) Gateway to the San Juans, thanks to marijuana"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/ridgway-the-cleaner-gateway-to-the-san-juans-thanks-to-marijuana\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><div class=\"media_block\"><\/div>\n<p>Since its creation as a railway headquarters for the Rio Grande Southern Railroad in 1890, the town of Ridgway has often found itself dependent on the traffic that heads through on the way to nearby Telluride and Ouray.<\/p>\n<p>That played somewhat in the town\u2019s concession to allow retail marijuana shops to open in 2014. The more folks through town, the more likely they would stop.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"related right\">\n<p><em>On Jan. 1, 2014, Colorado became the first U.S. state to allow legal recreational marijuana sales. It was sold to voters as a way to fix up crumbling schools, but that\u2019s only the start of where the hundreds of millions of tax dollars has gone, according to Denver Post reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Yet despite the ensured steady stream of customers, each of them contributing to the sales-tax coffers, the Town Council chose not to impose extra taxes on marijuana businesses. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe interesting thing is that the Town Council, when it decided to allow and regulate the marijuana operations, the conversation wasn\u2019t so much about tax revenues and what it could do,\u201d said Jennifer Coates, the town manager, \u201cbut rather looked to the needs and wants of the community and the ballot question. It was focused more on desires than on tax revenues.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ridgway, a town of about 930, in 2014 had an annual budget of just $1.4 million fueled mostly from a 3.6 percent local sales tax. It wasn\u2019t long before the budget grew to nearly double that amount, largely because of those new marijuana businesses.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3309954\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter size-article_inline\"><img class=\" lazyautosizes lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/ridgway-the-cleaner-gateway-to-the-san-juans-thanks-to-marijuana.jpg\" alt=\"Ridgway, Colorado is seen from above ...\" width=\"5568\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/ridgway-the-cleaner-gateway-to-the-san-juans-thanks-to-marijuana.jpg\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/ridgway-the-cleaner-gateway-to-the-san-juans-thanks-to-marijuana.jpg 620w,https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.denverpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/RIDGWAY-11-29-2018-JA-2799a.jpg?fit=780%2C9999px&amp;ssl=1 780w,https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.denverpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/RIDGWAY-11-29-2018-JA-2799a.jpg?fit=810%2C9999px&amp;ssl=1 810w,https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.denverpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/RIDGWAY-11-29-2018-JA-2799a.jpg?fit=630%2C9999px&amp;ssl=1 630w\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\n<p>Joe Amon, The Denver Post<\/p>\n<p>Ridgway, Colorado is seen from above on Nov. 29, 2018.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Last year the town collected $214,476 in marijuana taxes, and total sales tax revenues from all sources has topped $1 million annually since 2016, Coates said.<\/p>\n<p>But rather than hunker down with a specific plan on how to spend the extra dollars, the council instead has taken on different projects as the needs have arisen and looked to the marijuana bucks as the way to get them done. This way no one is caught short relying too heavily on a revenue stream that promises to be mercurial.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s a fair description to call it Christmas money,\u201d Coates said.<\/p>\n<p>Probably the most important use of the marijuana tax dollars was hiring a new town planner in April 2017 and a broadband infrastructure plan that\u2019s likely to finish in 2019.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3309956\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter size-article_inline\"><img class=\" lazyautosizes lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/ridgway-the-cleaner-gateway-to-the-san-juans-thanks-to-marijuana-1.jpg\" width=\"5568\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/ridgway-the-cleaner-gateway-to-the-san-juans-thanks-to-marijuana-1.jpg\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/ridgway-the-cleaner-gateway-to-the-san-juans-thanks-to-marijuana-1.jpg 620w,https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.denverpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/RIDGWAY-11-29-2018-JA-3408a.jpg?fit=780%2C9999px&amp;ssl=1 780w,https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.denverpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/RIDGWAY-11-29-2018-JA-3408a.jpg?fit=810%2C9999px&amp;ssl=1 810w,https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.denverpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/RIDGWAY-11-29-2018-JA-3408a.jpg?fit=630%2C9999px&amp;ssl=1 630w\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\n<p>Joe Amon, The Denver Post<\/p>\n<p>Shay Coburn, the Ridgway Town Planner, poses for a portrait in her office in Ridgway.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<aside class=\"related right\" \/>\n<p>Ridgway, just 15 feet shy of 7,000 feet in elevation, receives about 7 feet of snow on average each year. Yet it didn\u2019t have a snow plow.<\/p>\n<p>It does now.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese are purchases that couldn\u2019t have been possible if not for that extra money,\u201d Coates said.<\/p>\n<p>The same is true of its new street cleaner, purchased to ensure newly improved downtown streets would look their best. And the town marshal got two new vehicles to replace ones that were nearly ready for the scrap heap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><\/div>\n<p>Since its creation as a railway headquarters for the Rio Grande Southern Railroad in 1890, the town of Ridgway has often found itself dependent on the traffic that heads through on the way to nearby Telluride and Ouray. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5062,6907,6811,6857,7455,6813,6848,77,5667,6858,6822,9,5019,441,8018,8038,1,3,61,1736],"tags":[5063,6909,6816,6859,7459,6818,6851,2655,5673,6860,6824,5022,3015,8022,8039],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8595"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8595\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}