OURAY – Like many city and town councils across Colorado, Ouray City Council members are struggling with how to regulate medicinal marijuana dispensaries, but they’re determined to make the process fair and reasoned.

The council earlier imposed a 180-day moratorium on allowing dispensaries in city limits. They held the first in a series of meetings this week to consider what further action it should take, and has urged residents to take part by using community resources and doing their own research.

The city already has a discussion board and informative documents posted on its website at www.ci.ouray.co.us, but that’s just a beginning, said city administrator Patrick Rondinelli.

“Don’t just rely on us,” he said. “There’s a lot of information out there.”

With the passing of Amendment 20 in 2000, medical marijuana dispensaries became legal in Colorado. Because of a State Department of Health-imposed guideline that restricted the number of patients a caregiver could supply with marijuana to five, the ranks of certified patients grew slowly. But that rule was struck down in the courts last year, and dispensaries have proliferated across the state every since. With pot dispensary applications skyrocketing, every town in Colorado must choose the best course of action to regulate the businesses.

Meanwhile, the state is also trying to decide how to tackle the onslaught and a new bill toughening regulations for the relationship between doctors and medical marijuana patients cleared the state Senate last week.

But how that will end up is anybody’s guess, according to Ouray Mayor Bob Risch.

“At the state level, it is changing day by day,” he said. “What it (the final bill) will look like, we don’t have a clue.”

Risch said the city’s Community Development Committee is studying what other towns are doing and will report back to the council at its Feb.16 meeting.

Nine meetings to discuss marijuana dispensaries are scheduled, and each meeting will address a set of topics.

At this week’s meeting, councilmembers discussed several points, including whether to model regulations after pharmacy or liquor license applications.

Pharmacies are heavily regulated by the state, Assistant City Attorney Kathryn Sellars said, but with liquor licenses, the city would have more local control.

“The liquor license (model) suits me,” councilmember Gary Hansen said. “I’d like to have the annual renewal.”

Risch noted that Sellars and City Attorney David White have extensive experience working on a medical marijuana regulations since they are also legal counsel to Olathe, where the town council voted recently to set dispensary fees at $3,000.

Telluride just adopted regulations on dispensaries and many other towns in the are have set moratoriums while they grapple with the issue.

Fruita has a ballot issue this spring to include a tax on marijuana, Rondinelli said.

There’s “some debate whether they can do that,” he said. “People with AIDS or cancer are the least able to afford a tax.”

Sellars said Fruita’s ballot issue is kind of like guesswork, another reason that studying the issue is so important.

“We don’t want to take shots in the dark like Fruita,” she said.

How a dispensary could affect law enforcement was discussed, and Police Chief Leo Rasmussen said there is no conclusive data on whether a dispensary would increase crime. He suggested that the city require a dispensary to have a security system.

White said the liquor license model will have to be adjusted, because liquor is legal and marijuana is still classified as a narcotic.

“The watch word is that it has to be reasonable,” he said.

Public meetings on dispensaries are set to continue through May, with plans for the council to hold a first reading of the ordinance on June 7.