GREENLINING from Page 9
Daily Zoom Prayers for Holy Week at 8:45am, Thursday, April 14 - Saturday, April 16 www.saitaidans.org/calendar
Maundy Thursday, April 14, 5pm Outside, Inside, In-person Foot Washing, Eucharist, Stripping of the Altars Good Friday, April 15, 5pm Good Friday Liturgy at St. Aidan’s Holy Saturday, April 16, 7:30pm The Great Vigil of Easter Dress for outside & bring your own chairs Easter Day, April 17 8:30am Zoom 10:30am In-person 5:00pm Outside, In-person 10
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APRIL 14, 2022
“The conversation isn’t going to be about race. They’re going to say the exact same thing that any other industry person will say to you: [delivery] doesn’t work. It doesn’t make any money. But I personally know that they are going to do it themselves. So, you’re going to do the same thing the white guy is doing before you hire a person of color to do your delivery? “You guys have access, you have power, you have experience, but you’re doing the exact same thing. And why? Because you don’t want to share your money,” she adds. “It’s flat-out greed. Nothing more, nothing less.” When asked via email why Pure Genesis didn’t pair with a social equity delivery service, Wanda James replied: “Because of the cost, we don’t see an upside to making that business model work.” The city of Boulder currently only allows delivery of medical marijuana, according to licensing manager Mishawn Cook. And unlike Denver, which has prioritized social equity licenses until 2027, Boulder has placed no focus on social equity applications, nor has the city opted into recreational delivery or hospitality. “The reason you haven’t seen anything happening in Boulder around social equity is because you need new licenses to attach social equity to,” says Peter Marcus, communications director for Terrapin Care Station. “Boulder is more or less saturated in terms of dispensaries at this point. So we’ve been talking with the Cannabis Licensing and Advisory Board (CLAB) for years now about delivery, and about cannabis hospitality, lounges and stuff like that. It’s a broken board. It doesn’t move anything forward, really, just a lot of talking. So we’ve been encouraging the board to create new delivery and hospitality licenses, so that you can create new opportunities for Black and Brown entrepreneurs to get in.” CLAB board member Ashley Rhinegold is director of compliance for Terrapin Care Station. She connected Boulder Weekly with Marcus, but by press time had not responded to questions around why the board hasn’t moved forward with recommending new licenses and social-equity focused programming to City Council. Despite all of the frustrations, all social equity applicants expressed hope that the program could be improved. In March 2021, Gov. Polis signed a measure securing $4 million for loans, grants and technical assistance to social equity marijuana licensees. Applications for the first round of funding closed on April 11. “I put my blood sweat and tears into [helping craft] the social equity program, so I know that it is an ongoing process,” Woodson says. “People don’t understand: Change is incremental. When Amendment 64 first passed there was legislation on the state and local level every year, every month to get to the point where we’re at, where the existing industry has their stake. We’ve only been working at [social equity] for two years. The work doesn’t stop at year two.” Cohen says he sees how hard people like Woodson and James are working to bring equity to fruition, “lobbying and pushing for the legislation.” “Now it really requires officials at the state level and at the local level to look at the program,” Cohen says. “We’re telling them what needs to happen for it to be improved, to honor all the work that people like Sarah have done. If you’re saying that you want the program to be successful, you have the social equity community telling you things that we think are wrong with the program that can be improved. You’re hearing the same things. Just can you do it now? Can you do something?”
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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE