Grand Junction finally has rules for recreational cannabis sales

When the last lottery ball clinked into a wire cage, Dan Ramsay’s heart also dropped. After years of effort, he would not be opening a pot shop in Grand Junction, a city that has been one of most high-profile laggards in Colorado when it comes to allowing marijuana sales.

Ramsay, a longtime leader in the Western Slope hemp industry, had spent the past two years jumping through hoops to open a recreational marijuana store. He started planning when Grand Junction voters OK’d recreational sales in April 2021. After that vote, he and other potential cannabis business owners kept planning but were in a bureaucratic holding pattern while the City of Grand Junction yo-yoed on the criteria for marijuana merchants.

Ramsay attended at least 15 city meetings while the wheels of…