By Jon Murray | jmurray@denverpost.com

From the Denver Post July 5, 2016

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In this Aug. 25, 2014 photo, marijuana store Denver Relief co-owner Kayvan Khalatbari, right, talks with his employee Jeff Botkin his medical and recreational marijuana shop in Denver. Khalatbari also runs Denver Relief Consulting, which assists current and would-be marijuana-related businesses around the country, as well as owning a chain of pizza restaurants in Denver.

Denver voters could have their pick in November between two initiatives aimed at allowing social use of marijuana in different places.

One group has been gathering signatures for an initiative that would allow private marijuana consumption clubs. The other has a more expansive aim: to allow nearly any business, including a bar, to offer a set-off, 21-and-over public “consumption area,” so long as the owner obtains a neighborhood group’s support first.

For its private clubs initiative, the Denver chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) has a two-month head start on its ballot petition. The other group of activists — including some who pulled a social-use initiative last year — initiated the process Tuesday afternoon by meeting with an assistant city attorney and the City Council’s director for input on its proposed language.

That group, which includes the Marijuana Policy Project, law firm Vicente Sederberg and business owners, says it has tweaked its approach as a result of meetings with city officials, following its withdrawal of last year’s initiative, as well as consideration of recent neighborhood push-back against the marijuana industry.

The consumption areas would be allowed for four years, unless the council tweaks the approach or makes it permanent by the end of 2020. The proposal is titled “The Neighborhood Approved Cannabis Consumption Pilot Program.”

Primary sponsor Kayvan Khalatbari, a marijuana business owner and consultant, says the group is aiming to persuade Denver NORML to drop its private clubs initiative. That is in part because he sees private clubs as further segregating marijuana use rather than integrating it into society.

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