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CNN Live Event/Special
High Profits: Game On
Aired May 10, 2015 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[00:22:00] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everything in this house is falling apart.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can't drink the water. The sewage backed up and filled up the floor with toilet paper.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's miserable.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Looking from the outside in to this place it's beautiful. I mean, just like our business. People think one thing and don't realize what's really going on inside.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But perception is not reality.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Marijuana, pot, grass, whatever you want to call it is probably the most dangerous drug in the United States.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I shall continue to oppose efforts to legalize marijuana.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I inhaled it, frequently. That was the point.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That we're doing now is creating the next big tobacco of our time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a highly regulated business.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're talking about day lighting a black market activity.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are on cutting edge of a brand new industry.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is absolutely the next gold rush. This is the green rush.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now the dominoes are falling, especially when they see the economic revenue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's $2 billion to be had next year. I plan to take more than my fair share.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So question, are you guys getting moved?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The town council voted. You know, they approved us. This is such a good location. We don't want to move for sure. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You shouldn't have to.
KATHERINE GRIMM, CEO, CLEVER GENT BRANDS: 100% Brian's successful business plan has been built on location. As soon as recreational was approved, we hit about $1 million a month in our high tourist season and I would say 80% to 90% that have is going to Brian.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our landlord wants to jack our rent so high we can't afford to stay where we are. The best thing we can do is get into a building that's stable for us, either a long-term lease.
GRIMM: Or own our real estate.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Or own our real estate.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is more curiosity than anything.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Might talk you into buying something.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just got a text about the steak and rib building down the road.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know, right? Two stories. 500 feet from the school with their own parking lot. Like 4,000 square feet, and we have like 1,400 square feet right now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We need that building.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think we do.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our rent used to be $1,100 when we first moved in. Now it's $6,000 a month. Our landlord won't sell us the building because she wants a price war to happen. Then we'd in a situation where someone buys it, jacks our rent so high that it's immediately not worth being down here anymore. Anyone who has been at the last several council meetings has realize there had been a very strong 4-3 vote to allow stores downtown, and this falls under every zoning scenario that we've ever contemplated.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As I think we were talking about a little bit, we can take down this paneling over here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, covered up the door nice. All the weed's, I mean on the second story, you can't have any weed stuff on first, and then first story could be like gift shopy type of...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm, I'm hearing that there's votes coming up here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. That might change some things.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That may change some things, but that is one of the beauties of this is you could keep a food establishment and retail separately. Here's more dining, more space. This could be your back entrance here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that a mixed use building right there?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That is all residential, and that is town alley.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that's OK. A marijuana establishment can't be directly adjacent to a property solely for residence. I think as long as there's a road. I think they can't touch.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you guys see this as a restaurant with a weed store on top?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You got that down there, bringing in revenue. You have upstairs bringing in revenue, the front spot. People wanting to be there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gift shop, weed store and restaurant.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean, we won't get qualified for a loan from a bank so we need to talk to a private lender.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Currently it's advertised for 1.9 million.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everyone who owns -- any marijuana business in Colorado has to be a resident of Colorado. So real estate is a way for investors to kind of get their hands in the pot without actually owning any part of the marijuana business.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are all in agreeance that we love this building and it would work great and could do so many things with it. I would rather pay a high interest rate than give away ownership.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Very intelligent thinking there.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's such a fun grand opening.
[00:22:05] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So good to see you all.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You don't know how big of a relief you are.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was disabled in Afghanistan in 2011. We took a blast, and I have rods and screws in my back, in my spine it fuses six different vertebras together. The cannabis store knocks out about five or six bottles of medications. It's actually a much better alternative. BOB DOYLE, CHAIRMAN OF COLORADO SMART APPROACHES TO MARIJUANA: I'm
hoping people understand the difference between cannabis-based medicine and the medical marijuana movement. In Colorado, we sell, market, dispense medical marijuana like alcohol. If you and I walked into a pharmacy and there wasn't a pharmacist behind the counter but instead was a drug tender who told you, "Hey, what pain killers would you like today?"
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What did you say the lime green skunk was going to do for me?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's going to be a little more uplifting.
DOYLE: What would you do? Is it okay to be selling marijuana as a medicine without a dosage, without a duration.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you ever used a topical cream?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, they are awesome.
DOYLE: Nobody could tell me with a straight face, especially a medical person that this is following a medical protocol. That this is indeed focused on the patient, that's reckless and that's what this industry is, it's reckless, it's about glamorizing marijuana use and getting as much sold as they can as quickly as they can.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll take whatever this man prescribes for me. The knowledge you all have is fantastic.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sonny and everybody in the shop was very informative to us, and they taught us more about the new age of cannabis.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Patch was -- they are going to do what's said on here, CBN is good for muscle spasm, inflammation and insomniac.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's the biggest result we've seen in like people with Parkinson's.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want one of this and one of the blue dream.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm all for it. I'm good. I'll pay the price. I'll pay the money. By good, I'm going to get it and he's going to get relief.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the best alternative that I found.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thanks for everything.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Always.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Seriously. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You guys are the best.
[00:22:10] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're at the council right now, 4-3, is that we would like to allow some retail sales of marijuana. We had four licensees out on airport road who were upset that they couldn't come to downtown main street.
GRIMM: The fight from an airport road perspective is for a fair an equal playing field, so about it comes to whether or not dispensaries are allowed on main street or not allowed on main street it's simply from our perspective either we're all allowed in a fair and equal manner or no one is allowed.
SHANNON HAYNES, POLICE OFFICER: In the language we would limit one premise per block that abuts main street and then have an additional 100-foot proximity restriction between the businesses.
Here's what you have. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. We have one up here. If you had it exactly in the right spot you could get eight.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This makes me nervous. Because when I look at all these spaces, is that real?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 150.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's physically available, but you don't know what the landlord is going to say.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But it would like -- all the stars have to line up.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Correct.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every money makes the stars line up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Yes, that's true.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know that we think it's such a wealthy industry, but I don't know if it's wealthy enough to completely reshape our main street. I don't think that's going to happen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I feel like we're moving too quickly on it. I think it would be better and we would make a better decision if we did get more input on the decision from the people that it will affect the most.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to deal with it. One way to perhaps address your discomfort is to join me and vote no on this.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Public voted on it three times, you know. I feel like that was speaking up for it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think we're making it a bigger deal by continuing to drag this out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't want to move on because I'm tired of talking about it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have talked about this for several years. It's just now getting the restrictions and how we're going to manage it so that's why I want to move on.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are setting very tightly controlled rules which should set a de facto limit on the number of shops that are available, you know, one shop per block. Those kinds of rules are what we talked about. We haven't passed them yet, but council is moving much faster than would I want. I'd rather have more consensus on the issue than pass it on a divided council and a divided town.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are going to allow downtown stores. It's fairly restrictive.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Meaning that...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So this thing really doesn't qualify on things. It doesn't qualify because of the residents.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An alley, not a road.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It would be adjacent to a residence which would disqualify as a marijuana building.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So I think it's taking people that, it's out because of that zoning issue.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Realistically we have a ton of other issues now facing us that we have to...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. This is almost worse for us because we thought we'd have somewhere to go and get out of our building. Our building will become a target for investors that want to buy our building simply to jack our rent up super high, bleed all the profits out without actually having to be a marijuana business owner. Now we're a target.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's get out of here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I do this every morning. Waking them up, letting them know I'm thinking about them. People think the store is where the money is, but the real bread and butter is in the garden. Right now this isn't worth much. Give us 100 days and we'll have $1 million worth of marijuana here. This is going to get us out of our cash poor situation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, the little baby girls here. These plants are about a week of age, just over a week. See, they started rooting through the clone cubes and at that point once we see the roots it's time for a transplant. They need to be tagged before I transplant them. Kind of a tedious process, but you're in the peaceful garden, I Find it no trouble to relax and make my way through the day.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You go out for the day and take advantage of his muzzler tag and my archery tag and see if we can't find some elk.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bought a gun with marijuana money.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's too late to fight the pot issue, but we can at least keep it from being downtown.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're a family-oriented place. We don't want it overrun with marijuana shops. We can't have five to eight.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Strategically there's about seven spots that might qualify for recreational sales of marijuana.
[00:22:15] MIKE DUDICK, BRECKENRIDGE TOWN COUNCIL MEMBER: Not everyone agrees with the Breckenridge town council and we've not had the opportunity in the community to have this debate, and we want you to let us have this debate.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think the town council made a wrong move whenever they were like all or none. All of a sudden going from removing the pot shop to one on every block, where did that come from?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The position of the majority of this council is to place Breckenridge as the number one pot destination in the United States, if not the world.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's a petition going on right now. I think that a lot of people are speaking up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This whole petition is ridiculous. We're just trying to work, you know. My job is at risk, my employees' jobs is at risk, everyone that employ. Livelihoods, just because these people have nothing to do but shut us down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm pro-business for everyone in this community and I want everyone to have every opportunity to do well. That's what I'm about.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've got no service.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And we've got a ways to go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're probably a quarter.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe half way.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe halfway there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's this right there. Right over that ridge there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I moved to Colorado to enjoy the outdoors. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why does that look so much like antlers.
[00:22:20] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We love to snowmobile and ski and fish and be outside but we don't have time to do that if we don't have time to run the business the way it needs to be run. Our recreational days are limited to maybe a dozen in a year now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nothing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How much does it cost?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For a kids deck it's $10 and you can do a general race duck and it's only $5.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My day job I work for the summit foundation.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're an overall nonprofit in the county, similar to United Way and other community. So we give back to other non-profits through grants.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Duck race, 27th annual, 10,000 ducks will come down the river. This fund raiser is the largest fund-raiser in summit county to the tune of over $100,000. It's crazy. It's really crazy for me like how different this place looks in just 24 hours from now. It will look totally different.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is my day job. This is my livelihood, what I do. It's also my passion. Here I am $20,000 under what I normally am. I was the pro pot person. I was the champion for it on main street, and now am I causing this? I have taken this pro marijuana stance pretty far, and I've also had conversations and comments. I man a really respect came up to me at an orchestra concert and got right in my face and said you're an idiot and you're ruining your town and I don't like what you're doing on council so here let me target your day job.
I see them as threats. People that supported my campaign, they won't even look at me now. Do I worry about how this affects me, my daughter. It keeps me up at night, for sure. I also don't think no matter what kind of campaign people do that I'm going to change my mind. I'm not benefiting from this in any way. Like, I expected Brian and Caitlin to make a much bigger contribution to the foundation than they did. Sally filled out the form and it said one, and I said oh, do you have another form and she looked at me and said no. I'm like huh. So bull this was the sinking heart, you know. Here, oh, look what I did for you and this is what I get.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Three, two, one. Racing ducks.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's going to be 20 bucks on the dot for it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sold.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. That's for me. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why did I do that?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've been working on that marijuana industry tracking system and I have to take everything and transfer it into one of our mixed tags, super annoying and complicated, but I've already found one mistake here that I'm not exactly sure what to do about it. I accidentally put purple dream instead of blue dream.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The marijuana division is responsible for implementing a number of programs that licensees will be responsible for, public safety and consumer protection. We have some pretty stringent labeling requirements. We have a system that tracks their inventory from the time they have immature plants until the time the plants are harvested and packaged and sent to the point of sale.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It should be accurate. If you need to do a quick count, leave the bags as they are and count the quick cash for a quick solution.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know what I mean?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah. We have some mitt things that we're supposed to be doing. Our state system and point of sale system are not ling up. Huge pain in the ass. But it is so important that we do, do it because if we don't get it done or don't figure out the problem they can shut us down for 30 days and then they decide how to punish us which sucks.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The inventory is so hard to keep track of and right now we have two different system to keep our inventory straight on, and it's difficult. We have every single day's worth of sales in here, and can you click on that day and see exactly what was sold throughout the day, and we do actually use another system as well, Biotrack. Biotrack and Mitts communicate with each other that we can update our sale to the system to that it is legally required at the end of every single business day.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't really know what to do. I guess we'll find out. I messed up something. It's pretty small. I'm sure it happened before. Everything is perfect except for one thing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What did you do?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The ones with dots on them are the ones I already put on successfully, but I put purple dream instead of blue dream.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's fine.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you sure?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Erik.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My question is did you make sure that it's there? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You've got to be kidding me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I do not see.
[00:22:25] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Erik, oh, my God.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People don't realize the hoops you have to jump through, the rules you have to follow. It is what it is. It, move on.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Elizabeth Warren sent me a text. I'm just going to read it to you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So she said any chance to chat later about what's going on? I just haven't heard anything from you all and I have no idea where all this is going anymore. Do you know people put in an open records request to see which candidates received money from you? It's gotten so ugly and dirty.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Open records, request for money.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. You know, the three of us who accepted money, now people are saying that it's basically we paid them to vote the way that they are voting which we know isn't true. We never would have supported a candidate that wasn't supportive of marijuana to begin with, and they actually supported marijuana before we donated anything.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here, we said are you pro-marijuana? If so, we want you to win.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are people that are boycotting their annual contribution to the summit foundation unless she changes her mind, and also that Erin has had clients pull clients advertising from the station until she changes her mind and now she his council members are -- personal lives are being affected.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do we just -- I mean, I'm so tired of all of this. It's kind of messed up that the same people that are trying to say we were affecting the process through corrupt...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Making a campaign donation and now they are withholding probably way more than $100.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tens of thousands of dollars.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Like who is behind this?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I need -- that's what I'm going to find out.
[00:22:30] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yes. I do know what you're talking about.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Weed, lube, awesome, cool. I'm definitely going to look into that. So I just got this phone call for a lubrication for your nether regions.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With weed in it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who was that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It gets your genitals high.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh what.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are talking about this might be the Viagra lager for women, I mean, for how many people that come in everyday asking, "What's the best for sex?"
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Marijuana definitely heightens your senses that it makes...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's been...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It makes everything better. I feel like it makes everything better. Why leave sex out?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right. So what's the deal? What happened with that lady that came in the other day about the council?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They had a lady come up at the one town council meeting that was a couple weeks ago, and she got up and she was like I am the spokesperson for all of the dispensaries on -- on airport road.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Heard of certain dispensaries having like negative things to say and stuff, but I didn't know...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They all conspired together.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean, it's getting personal.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a good thing that we have a lot of the council members on our side.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We get to keep our jobs.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, you all. It's been forever.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I like your haircut.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's cute.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stuck in this bench, contorted.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How are you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good, how are you doing in.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's so awfully all, I have no idea where to begin.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mark and I were talking about it on Friday, and they are like they must not even care.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I have no idea.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: See, that's what we were thinking, right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. I thought this all settled into nothing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know, Gary Friese who spoke at town council and owns the Breck gallery, I don't know if you've had a conversation with him. His wife put in a core request which is Colorado Open Reports Act Request I got so inflamed by it and sat outside her shop and said I'm going to save you some time. You don't even have to look into this. I'm going to tell you. Yes, they gave me money. She said, well, they paid you off. I'm like that's not like it all. She said, well, then I feel like I should tell you something. She said, OK. A group of people have got together recently in a party and have all decided they are not going to contribute to the summit foundation. They are going to withhold their funds.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Specifically...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: About me, unless I change my mind. That is a real threat, only because some of the people that are against this, I know what they contribute. It is a huge amount. I mean, we get over half a million dollars. We're talking like $750,000 a year just off that annual campaign, but regardless, like it's unsettling because it's my job.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have to have a job. Like I'm a single mom.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, do you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have to have my income.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No one wants you to lose your job.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, no, and at first I was so scared when I heard it just because of the threats to my job, right? I was so terrified. I was like I have to change my vote.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's the first thing I thought too.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But then I thought then that's giving into them. What happens in a year when someone is upset about our next issue?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Want to do that every time.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They want to do that every time.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right now the tides are kind of shifting a little bit. If the council sends it to the voters, Brian has to fight to stay on main. He didn't want to work with anyone else, so is anyone else, myself, am I going to now stand up behind him and support him in this campaign, or am I going to support all the money that's anti-marijuana on main street. Makes way more sense to support the money anti-money on main street.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I get frustrated because the best bet is to support no one on main. How do you be anti-anything marijuana? How do you say yes, you're right, we shouldn't be on main street? We should be hidden away or we shouldn't be accessible to the community?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I would say to tell your people get behind having a vote of the people and actively campaign against the issue.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Aren't we too late for a vote of the people?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. This petition, it has 560 signatures on it in like five days.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Should provide a clear signal to the council that they need to have a vote of the people.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I guess I'm just hesitant to really believe that despite how many signatures are on a petition that any of the council members are going to flip at this point.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My conversations today have a different perfective.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think they are hearing via this petition that there are voices of discontent out there and that they may not necessarily be representing the will of the community to have shops on main street.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My next step would be to make the same phone calls and stand also in support of the vote of the people.
[00:22:35] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Am I surprise that had wealthy business owners have less regard for someone else's business? No, that's why they are wealthy business owners. That's how it works. You don't become a wealthy business owner by trying to be nice to everyone.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have a target on my back specifically.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And why is that? Do people think I'm weak? Is that why I'm a target?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's because you're more vulnerable than anybody else, you're vulnerable from a job perspective, from a life perspective which is shitty, like that is so, so horrible. If you could go back, would you do it different? Would you start over? I mean, that's an impossible question, but would you?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know. It's marijuana, and it's not that big of a deal, but now maybe my personal views have to be on our personal views, that it's not a big deal.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sure.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And -- and, blah. I hate myself currently.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It sucks. It sucks.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And do I really want to put my job on the line for a pot shop? No, I don't.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Other than standing up for what's right, what's it worth?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who are you fighting for?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Brian and Caitlin? What's the harm of just sending it to your voters?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm tasked with a business decision.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just send it to the voters.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, God, I just feel like things are so unfair right now. I can't say what will happen on Tuesday, but of right now I just would like to wash my hands of it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And say let's send it to the voters.
[00:22:40] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We plan to shut down that garden that we have in Breckenridge. It's entirely too small for what we need, and we can just produce the product here at a much better price per pound so we don't need the cost that have other garden. It expires in a couple of days now, and we were hoping to just take the plants from over there to over here. Well, we were told that we just need written permission from the state, and I've been calling for weeks now to get confirmation of what exactly their protocol was, and they told me that basically it was legally impossible for me to take these plants. We were planning on having 900 plants come from that garden over there here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These plants are worth about $500 wholesale or maybe $1,200 retail or something, so each plant.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's 1,000 times 900.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: $900,000.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: $1 million.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Almost $1 million worth of potential revenue off of those plants.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Damn it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will have a discussion about what to do with it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know, I've been reading the petition and reading the comments.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you refresh it every 10 seconds?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, completely.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Here are the latest.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've talked about it and I'm sure you have, too, about how this issue is turning into a generational thing, you know, something very generational.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I hear all the time from people, especially on that board, if only you were older you would understand what you're doing. But these are the people that I work with all the time in my job and they want to have an opinion and they feel like they can give me an opinion what. What they are passionate about, their orchestra, their arts, and they know that I'm all about that so that's why they elected me.
It seems to be just this one issue that we're so different on and divided. So obviously I'm worried about my job, only because I'm dependent upon, it just like you are. Like I know at our last meeting I was like absolutely not put it to the voters. Like I was so adamant against that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Obviously things have changed since then. I mean, I just keep going back and forth, back and forth. I just wonder if that comes up again where we'll all fall or if you think putting it to the voters is okay or not. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I still believe that we're a representative
democracy and that's what we signed up for. We're not going to make everybody happy, that's for sure. That's how I -- that's how I see it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So then maybe that's our job. We're the elected officials, and it's up to us to make these hard decisions. At the risk of putting ourselves on the line. Do we have the stomach for it I guess is the question? I think you do, more than I.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There is a lot of discussion about main street. People really value it here. Obviously, I mean. It's what we put in all of our advertising. It's -- it's important to people. People question morality when it comes to marijuana. They question how they were brought up. There's a lot of fear surrounding it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's just so much misinformation is what it is. Oh, here's a guy, Joel Brule. He doesn't live here, by the way, we should impeach town council members, Mark Burke, Elisabeth Lawrence and Erin Giglio and also boycott their businesses. That's in the petition. I mean, you know, people are vicious on this.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This got out of hand, and it got out of hand fast. The council wasn't going in the right direction. They were the ones that had started this in saying one per block. That's when the town erupted.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'd like to call to order the Breckenridge town council regular meeting for Tuesday, September 9th at 7:38 P.M. be happy to open up our meeting to citizens' comments. Come on down, Gary. What we'd like you to do is come to the podium, state your name for the record and we'd like to hear what you have to say.
[00:22:45] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The cannabis club lease was to expire September 1, 2014. This was a non-issue at the time of the spring's council elections. For the cannabis club not to start the relocation process on June 1st, 90 days ahead of that September 1 deadline raises the ethical question of contact with this council on the extension prior to any public hearings.
Through the freedom of information act my wife, Janet Freese accessed the election contributions of newly elected and re-elected town council members. The three candidates elected this spring, each received a minimum of $500 from the cannabis club. It appears that these three candidates did not attempt to recuse themselves prior to any discussion or vote of the main street marijuana issue or extension of the BCC lease.
These donations in conjunction with the delayed change of location appear to be a conflict of interest on the part of this council. At this time, Mayor Warner, we request that the council recuse Mark Burke, Elisabeth Lawrence and Erin Giglio from all voting on all main street marijuana issues. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think I will, Gary. My understanding of a
legal Contribution is that if it's legal, it's been reported, there is no conflict of interest if you choose to act in favor or against the proponent who gave you considerable contribution.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have no financial gain whether they stay or leave airport road or come on main street or anything to. Have someone stand up here and speak the way you're speaking, it's offensive quite frankly.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Gary, I just find it ironic. You yourself, you're a BMF supporter. More than four times the amount of my gain contributions came from people who are current or recent passed BMF board members. And so here in a month when we talk about our BMF funds next year should I recuse myself? Would you like me not to be a part of the conversation? Do you see the correlation?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I don't. That's a separate issue that you have chosen to position yourself candidly. There's somewhat biting the hand that's Fete feeding the summit foundation currently is an issue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gary, I would like you to...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Gary, that's you and your threats of your friends to my job.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, Elisabeth and Mark, I would like to keep some order here. Appreciate your comments, Gary. I think we should leave it at that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Elisabeth asked and I responded.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, let it be known for the record.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any other comments from the public?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My name is Brian Bogers, and I would just like to thank the last participant for openly committing a class four felony by intimidating a public official with economic reprisal. That was very nice of you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's not be cute. Let's not be sarcastic.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wouldn't have said a word of it if he hadn't done it. I'm sorry, John.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I didn't threaten any jobs with regards to Elisabeth. There are people that are extremely unhappy with the position that she's taken. If her job is in jeopardy because of their lack of contributions, interpret that as you may. The charge is there. It's 4,200 voters approximately that are out there, and I think every one of those voters are going to be contacted, and the chips will fall where they may, you know. Game on. [00:22:50] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So what we really have is two yes. Who is in favor of a vote? And who is in favor of a moratorium?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think if we don't take it to the voters in a timely fashion, I think all hell -- I think all hell is going to break loose.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, that's a reasonable measure to take in this situation. I'm not opposed to it at all.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, I think we've done this to ourselves and every time that leadership flounders, your community flounders and everybody is fighting a position for themselves so I think the best way to address this is get the guidance of the electorate. I have faith in our citizens.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I for one am for a vote. This is a chance for our public to react to something that's in paper, that's been written by us and that is factual.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's take it to the voters and figure out the format in which we want to do it, because otherwise I'm going to ask to recuse myself from this because I'm going to have a mental breakdown. This is crazy. We are going -- we are a great soap opera right now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These guys filming it are loving this. We've got to end this. We've got to move on me and I think we're hearing people say let us weigh in. Let us vote on is it and whatever format you want to take it to us. That's where I am.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gary, appreciate that. Elisabeth?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A lot of you have heard, you know, the threats against my job and various other things, and I have to have my job and can't risk that so I -- I think putting it to a vote, even though I still feel the way I voted before is the right way, I feel putting it to the vote is the only thing -- my only choice I can do to protect my job so that's why I'm going that way.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thanks, everybody, for your thoughts, so our short discussion is over. With that being said, thank you all for being here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just because the same vocal 10 percent has gotten to the point where they are breaking the law by threatening and intimidating council members to vote one way or the other.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Three months we've been listening them to say fair, fair, fair, fair and now it's a specific attack against us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's completely unfair. [00:22:55] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Brian, what's happening? Yes, man.
Just doing payroll and getting it done, Friday and all.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nice. We got out of that meeting with M.E.D. and unfortunately even though when they told us earlier that we could transfer these plants.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With special written permission or whatever they wanted. That was apparently not the case, and we cannot transfer plants from one location to the other. Only clones.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How many plants do you think you have in there?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Close to 1,800.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my gosh.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So we're going to have to kill quite a few. We're going to have to destroy maybe 20 percent or 30 percent of those plants.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That sucks.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's a lot. We've done...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That sucks.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's like my last three months of work.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're still going to harvest 30 or 35 pounds. At least we're not harvesting zero.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've got winter right around the corner here. Leaves are already changing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to be blowing through pounds a day, and now we're killing plants. This isn't -- this isn't good.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, we've got to follow the rules.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This one hurts, man. We put a lot of time in this over here. All of us have.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is -- this is us pioneering a new industry and learning the rules as we go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, let's go get taken care of this then.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, so we got 18 times two, 36 per side.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. All right. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're talking about hundreds.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're talking about hundreds of plants now. I honestly think we're going to kill half of these plants maybe. There's not enough space here. We grew enough plants for a 10,000 square foot area and this place is only 1,600. We were planning on taking all them over to oak creek. There's no way to flower them all. At retail this is about 1 million bucks worth of plants that we're shredding that we could have had in 60 days, but there's always something.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If Brian loses or if anyone loses and there's no more dispensaries on main street, who is going to win? From a business perspective you can be the cheapest and have the best quality, but this is a tourist market we're fighting for. You have to actually be able to have enough supply to provide them. So we are here at mine and my partner's new warehouse. I personally really start to look long term. Rather than try to set up a franchise of particular dispensaries, my focus at this point and the smart money is on wholesaling.
It is always going to be a fight to open a new dispensary and always going to be pitly, pitly crap. It's retail. I hate retail. Gosh, it's so much more finished than it was when I was first here. I love this industry because it's a gold mine, but I hate retail. I don't want to run 50 dispensaries. I don't want to run 50 liquor stores. I want to be Coors. I want to be Sam Adams. I want to be supplying the 50 liquor stores.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're hanging the lights right now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The difference in two pounds per light versus three pounds per light.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Huge.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At 100 lights, 200,000 every two months.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So $1 million a year if we can get an extra pound per light.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Whatever it costs to bring a consultant in if that is something that worked is so very valuable.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely. Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean, can you only make so much out of one dispensary. When I'm looking at one five, 10 years down the road when this becomes legal federally, when I can start transporting across state lines, I'm going to be prepped and ready. I can't walk into every state that legalizes it and open a new dispensary. However, can I up how much product I'm growing and ship it out to them? Absolutely. Absolutely.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're in trouble for winter. Thanksgiving is 60 days away. This one's not good.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel like you're in a situation where you need to find some friends.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where's your skin in this game?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't have any skin in this game.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't have any weed and we don't have any money. This is a kink in our plan.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is 88% THC.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's worth double the price worth a gram of gold.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I also don't want to be the center of controversy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That is the biggest load of our group. I will challenge them.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Like boiling inside just thinking about it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everyone is playing everyone. I'm fed up. I just don't trust any of it.
