OURAY – In a special meeting, and on the heels of a heated discussion of medical marijuana dispensaries at its meeting last week, the Ouray City Council approved the first reading of a six-month moratorium on medical pot stores.

The board approved the ordinance’s first reading unanimously, said City Manager Patrick Rondinelli, and the second reading will be held at the council meeting on Jan. 17.

No public notice was required for the hastily called meeting, he said, but public notice will be given before the second reading

“This was first reading of the ordinance and only needs to be done during a meeting,” Rondinelli said in a Jan. 7 email. “The council wishes to move quickly on this so a special meeting was scheduled for yesterday.”

Several people expressed strong opposition to medical marijuana dispensaries at Ouray’s city council meeting Monday night, but Mayor Bob Risch said the stores can’t be outlawed outright.

At least one person has approached the city about opening a dispensary, but the council plans to study its options first, Risch said.

“It’s a very complicated issue and very timely,” Risch said after the meeting. “A lot of communities around the state and the state legislature are interested in getting a handle on it.”

Risch said the current state amendment that legalized medical marijuana dispensaries “wasn’t tightly written” and communities have a lot of flexibility on how to cope with the growing trend.

To give city leaders a chance to study the trend that seems to be sweeping the state, the council plans to introduce a resolution in the near future to place a six-month moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries, Risch said, “since there are so many unknowns.”

Dr. Jim Opdahl, a retired oral surgeon, said at the meeting that he is strongly opposed to allowing dispensaries in the city.

“Coming from a medical background, there are simply no health benefits in inhaling smoke particles from burning plants, whether it’s marijuana or tobacco,” Opdahl said. “This whole area is so health conscious, it certainly doesn’t seem to fit into the lifestyle of most people here. I’m opposed to the opening of such establishments and we need to look very carefully at how we can do this very legally and discourage the selling of medical marijuana.”

Opdahl said the state legislature is looking at ways to make its guidelines more strict, and a moratorium by the city will give it more time to see the direction the state takes.

“I agree with a moratorium until we get our heads together until the state comes up with more stringent regulations and an appropriate route to take,” he said.

Paul Elmont also spoke and said he has problems with the idea of dispensaries because there are no regulations on the supply side of providing medical marijuana.

“They can buy from anybody, from drug dealers, and there’s nothing in the law to stop that from happening,” he said. “They’re trying to sell it under the idea that it’s a medical type remedy and the state wants to regulate it like it’s recreational.”

Elmont said a better idea that pot dispensaries would be to give licenses to distribute marijuana to existing nonprofit organizations.

“Anyone who is in this to make money shouldn’t be allowed to,” he said. “This is a temporary disguise to make that (legalization of marijuana) happen.”

Ken Garard also spoke at the meeting and agreed with Elmont that allowing medical marijuana dispensaries is “a backdoor approach to legalize.”

Garard said there are already dispensaries in Olathe and Delta, and they could serve the needs of people in Ouray who need marijuana for medical reasons, but that type of establishment doesn’t belong in Ouray.

“The one in Delta looks like a tattoo parlor gone bad, and it’s certainly not a Mountain Medical Clinic look,” he said. “I think it brings an undesirable element and I don’t want it next to my house and certainly don’t want it on Main Street.”

The size of the town, only eight square blocks, should keep city leaders from allowing dispensaries in town, Bud Zanett told the council.

“Any place would be close to the school and the amount of additional law enforcement would be unrealistic,” he said. “I think it’s totally and completely unnecessary because it’s too small a town. Even on Main Street would be too close to the schools.”

Only Joe Alaimo, a Ouray County veterinarian, spoke in favor of allowing medical pot dispensaries.

After the meeting, Alaimo said those in opposition seemed to reflect “a bunch of reactionary, negative input into what is an inevitable.”

As far as the dispensaries being a bad influence on children, Alaimo said children walk past liquor stores and places that sell tobacco every day without coming to harm.

“I don’t see how it will cause more accidents or more deaths, and it’s not like we’re going to become a gun-running, children-eating community,” he said. “It’s looking like a community effort to suppress it, but rather than that, my suggestion is to regulate it sensibly and pass it.”

If the city tries to outlaw medical marijuana stores, it will have an uphill legal battle, he said.

“If we regulate it, then we can get the benefit from it,” he said. “We can regulate and they will be subject to sales taxes.”

The actual procedure to pass a moratorium will take several weeks, Risch said.

“We will start quickly, but we have to go through a public hearing and a couple of weeks of publication and give notice of the direction we’re going in,” he said.