Kind Roots of Wray is about to find a cannabis oil production facility in Yuma.
The facility would be located in Yuma Industrial Park and operate year round. It could potentially generate significant excise tax revenues for Yuma City and create more than 20 jobs.
It is not a pharmacy and no products would stay in Yuma.
Ross King and John Bowman of Kind Roots made a presentation to Yuma City Council during its regular session last week. The council later unanimously approved the first reading of an ordinance that will allow one and only one marijuana manufacturing facility in the city.
The public comment will be heard before the second reading of the regulation at the Council meeting on July 20th. (The full wording of the regulation can be found in the “Public Notices” in this edition.)
All seven council members attended last week’s meeting – Mayor Ron Swehla, Marc Shay, Dan Baucke, Marylu Smith-Dischner, Tim McClung, Scott Hoch and Daniel Ebersole – held in person at Yuma City Hall.
King and Bowman are co-founders of Kind Roots and have been running an industrial hemp processing facility in Wray in the former Alco building for several years. King, who had most of the conversations, said the processing plant was Good Manufacturing Practices certified, approved by the Federal Drug Administration, and registered with the state of Colorado.
He told the council that they approached Colorado Cannibis last April, which operates marijuana grows along the Front Range. The company asked about Kind Roots’ processing of oil from cannabis plants. King said it’s the same process as Kind Roots with hemp, so the facility is all set up.
“We’re not talking about opening a pharmacy here,” emphasized King. “We’re not talking about selling anything within Yuma County.”
He compared the situation to the Jack Daniels distillery in Kentucky. The county it is in is “dry” but the county still benefits from tax revenue.
King and Bowman conducted an extensive community education effort in Wray last spring to convert the facility from hemp processing to marijuana processing. King said the City of Wray was accommodating throughout the process, but in the end, Wray City Council decided that this should be a voting issue in the November election.
King said last week that it is not on schedule to take advantage of the opportunity.
“We are asking the city of Yuma to change its cannabis statute” to allow the processing of oil in an industrial building in the Yuma Industrial Park.
He stated that the facility would be surrounded by a two meter high fence and equipped with a camera security system. The plants would be transported in secured, state-licensed vehicles to the Yuma plant, where the plants are processed into oil. The oil will leave Yuma in secure 55-gallon drums in secured vehicles for a manufacturing facility in Denver.
He said oil treatment is a clean process with no odor and no waste going into the sewer system. All plants are tagged and tracked by the Colorado State of Marijuana Enforcement Department.
“We have to move this opportunity to a city that is ready and open to at least look into this opportunity and see if this is a good thing for the city or not,” King said.
He stressed that he and Bowman were not proponents of marijuana use, but proponents of economic opportunity and job creation.
“Every small community in rural Colorado needs tax revenue,” King said.
He told the council the city could generate $ 1.2 to $ 1.4 million in excise tax revenue annually.
However, such a tax would have to be approved by the city’s voters and would only affect that particular business.
King noted that Colorado Cannabis has not yet signed Kind Roots’ suspension of processing as the company was not convinced that Yuma would go on board.
If everything goes as planned, Kind Roots will sell its building in Wray and move all processing equipment to Yuma. He said it would take about 45 days to set up in Yuma.
Councilors and city officials asked what the chances are that Kind Roots will stay in Wray even if Yuma passes the ordinance. King and Bowman said they would definitely relocate it from Wray, and it would be much cheaper to relocate it 27 miles west to Yuma than further away. They were asked what would happen if Colorado got off cannabis anyway. King said there were other potential sources, adding that he had no choice but to achieve this.
There was some public comment after the presentation. Dave Hoch said he was not in favor of marijuana use, but in favor of moving the Yuma facility as it is a clean business, will create well-paid jobs, and tax revenues will have a huge impact on the city.
Dave Blach said he would like to know more about how King got the excise revenue, but otherwise thinks it’s great for economic development. (Blach noted that he does not live in Yuma City.)
A short time later, the Council adopted the first reading of the regulation. Again, public comments will precede the second reading at the July 20 session at City Hall in downtown Yuma.
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