[[{“value”:”
The city of Manitou Springs voted on second reading Tuesday night to slash its special marijuana sales tax amount from 10% to 5%, a move that may foretell financial difficulties to come for the historic city west of Colorado Springs.
The move was prompted by a successful ballot measure legalizing recreational marijuana sales in Colorado Springs for existing medical marijuana businesses.
The Manitou Springs City Council voted unanimously and without debate on the measure. Bill Conkling, founder of Manitou Springs dispensary Maggie’s Farm, was the only audience voice on the action.
“I am thankful even for your consideration of this,” he said to council members.
Manitou Springs was the first municipality in El Paso County to legalize recreational sales in 2014. It remained until this year the only municipality with dispensaries, excepting the town of Palmer Lake in the northwest corner of the county.
The decision lowers the city’s sales tax to be in line with that set for Colorado Springs businesses. Conkling said at an earlier meeting on the issue that the disparity was driving a perception of higher prices in the small city popular with summer tourists.
The decision still may hurt Manitou Spring’s bottom line, particularly when it comes to financing infrastructure repairs and improvements.
“Sometimes ‘historic’ means we have a lot of old pipes and old sewers,” said Manitou Springs Mayor John Graham.
The cut is expected to have an impact on the town’s budget, which has been buoyed by recreational sales for a decade. The city is not allowed to disclose the exact revenue amount from marijuana by state statute, since Manitou Springs has fewer than three stores.
Revenue in the city’s “other” category increased by over 4,000% in the first half of 2015 compared to the same period in 2014.
In the intervening decade, Graham said that marijuana sales tax revenue has been a driving factor in the city’s ability not only to pay for improvements and repairs, but also to qualify for grant opportunities with a better cash position.
He said that 2022, the same year another recreational marijuana ballot failed in Colorado Springs, Manitou Springs had millions in unexpected costs. Creating a city ambulance service set the city back about $650,000, while needed repairs to a water filtration plant tallied $350,000. Other costs, like improvements to town hall, the police station and the Hiawatha Gardens parking lot, also coincided.
While the city has made progress on updates, Graham said the work far from done. The end to the recreational marijuana boom was always on the minds of city leaders, however.
“Many of us realistically didn’t think it would last forever,” said Graham.
”}]] The city of Manitou Springs voted on second reading Tuesday night to slash its special marijuana sales tax amount from 10 to 5%. Read More
