Owners of Medical Marijuana dispensaries in Fort Collins are counting down the hours until they have to shutter their operations. Voters approved a ban on the shops last November.
Fort Collins police will inspect more than a dozen sites today to confiscate and destroy any remaining product—many of the inspections will happen after businesses have closed at 7 pm.
Police Sergeant Jim Byrne says he expects the inspections to be a “non event.” That’s because law enforcement established contact with the city’s roughly 20 dispensaries months ago to map out the closure.
“It really was front loading the process a little bit as opposed to a number of other jurisdictions that we researched that tried to play catch up at the end,” he said.
Many shop owners have been reluctant to talk about the ban after losing a court battlelast week to stay open.
More than 80 communities have banned dispensaries since 2010 when state lawmakers allowed cities and counties to decide whether to allow medical marijuana businesses within their boundaries.
However, two dispensaries will still continue to operate in Larimer County outside of city limits after today.
