Praha Restaurant cleared to transition to pot shop
The Boulder County commissioners voted to uphold their Land Use Department’s approval of a plan to change the use of a property at 7521 Ute Highway to a marijuana shop from a restaurant.
Both restaurants and retail pot sales are uses-by-right in a business zoning district, including the on in which the property at the corner of Colorado 66 and North 75th Street, west of Longmont, staff concluded.
More than 45 people sent the county written objections to permitting a marijuana retailer from taking the place of Praha Restaurant and Bar, previously Old Prague Inn.
A dozen people argued against the change during the commissioners’ public hearing Thursday. But the elected officials cannot legally base their rulings on what kinds of businesses they like or dislike, or “your likes or dislikes,” commission chairwoman Elise Jones said.
Tanya Eisele, who said her North 75th Street home is “right across from the restaurant,” was one of several people worried that the change in use would aggravate already dangerous traffic conditions on Colorado 66 and on North 75th.
Denise Dunn, who said she lives just south of the restaurant, warned that a marijuana establishment would attract panhandlers to the area, something she said she’s seen near the marijuana store just outside Longmont’s city limits, at the intersection of Colorado 66 and U.S. 287.
Dunn said she feared that the shop would bring transients to the rural neighborhood, with people “camping out in our pastures.”
But Longmont resident Paul Rennix said the change in use would replace a restaurant that sells alcoholic beverages for consumption on its premises with one that sells marijuana that cannot legally be consumed on premises — something Rennix said would be a safety improvement.
The county commissioners and their staff acknowledged that Colorado 66 has traffic problems, but the commissioners indicated they did not believe those are being caused by customers of any current or proposed uses of the small property.