Since December, the Colorado Welcome Center in Cortez has quietly stopped displaying new brochures that feature marijuana dispensary ads, departing from the state office’s policy of waiting for guidance from the attorney general.
Noel Cooley, manager of the Cortez welcome center, recently refused to display the 2017 Montezuma Menu Guide, which contains an ad for the local Doobie Sisters store alongside ads for local restaurants and bars, until it is approved by the state office.
Cooley said the decision was handed down from the Colorado Tourism Office as part of a recent review of its policy on marijuana advertising. The state tourism office disagrees.
Kirstin Graber, a public relations representative at the state office, said that it is reviewing its policy, but it has not directed welcome centers to stop displaying the ads during the process.
Cathy Ritter, director of the Colorado Tourism Office, and Taren Mulch, the state’s interim director of visitor services, have sent a request to Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman’s office asking for guidance on how to apply two specific marijuana advertising regulations to the 10 official welcome centers scattered around the state.
One regulation, the 2013 Colorado Code Regulation 212-2.1106, directs advertisers to “refrain from advertising where more than approximately 30 percent of the audience is reasonably expected to be under the age of 21,” following the voluntary standard of alcohol advertising. Rule R1108 says that “a Retail Marijuana Establishment shall not engage in Advertising that specifically targets Persons located outside the state of Colorado.”
Cooley argues that many of the center’s visitors are likely to be under the age of 21 and they come from outside Colorado, although the welcome center does not distribute the ads out of state. “That’s kind of the big question that’s been out there for (the tourism office): Do we want marijuana tourism?” Cooley said. “Is that something we’re interested in or not?”
But the tourism office hasn’t made a judgment on marijuana tourism or advertising.
“We will continue to distribute brochures with marijuana advertising while we await guidance from the state attorney’s office,” Graber said.
“We were not aware that Cortez had decided not to distribute those.”
The state office requires that welcome center managers create a policy based on their own judgment regarding local publications. The guideline for local brochure display states, “Each individual Welcome Center will establish a policy for distribution of local tourism-related brochures. This will be a written policy established with the Welcome Center Site Manager.”
Cooley said she has no written policy at the Cortez center, but on May 5 she said she had asked City Attorney Mike Green to help her create a policy that conforms to state law. Green said he is offering advice, but described the state tourism guidelines on marijuana advertising as “a gray area.” He said he expects it will take him a week or two to figure it out.
“I don’t know that there’s a black and white answer,” he said.
The Cortez welcome center is a “cooperative facility” that answers to both the local and state government, he said, which is why he’s willing to offer his advice to Cooley as the city attorney.
For now, Cooley said she performs a weekly inspection of all brochures and removes those with marijuana ads.
On May 5, at least six brochures at the center contained ads for dispensaries in Aurora, Telluride, Lyons, Steamboat Springs, Salida and along U.S. Highway 285. Cooley said she plans to remove the brochures for U.S. Highway 285 and the Salida area, since they were unsolicited deliveries. The others, she said, are 2016 publications, and she expects they will be updated soon. She said the Menu Guide is the only local publication she has rejected.
“They (tourism officials) find it interesting that there is a marijuana ad in the restaurant guide itself, since it’s not a restaurant,” Cooley said, referring to the tourism office.
She also said she wanted to avoid offending elderly visitors.
The Menu Guide, which is published by Ballantine Communications Inc., contains advertisements for 25 businesses in Montezuma County. This is the first year it has included a pot dispensary ad, but it has often featured ads for local bars and breweries, which would fall under the voluntary alcohol advertising standards on which the marijuana regulations were based.
Carly Wolf, co-owner of The Doobie Sisters, said the policy decision is “unfortunate,” but she doesn’t expect it to hurt her business too much.
“There’s still that stigma on the industry, but we have lots of other ways to advertise,” she said.
Ballantine advertising representative Colleen Donley said the company typically sends about 2,000 copies of the menu guide to the welcome center.
Cooley said she did not inform local advertisers about her stance on marijuana advertising.
“The state does not tell us how that stuff works,” she said.
Graber also said she was unable to give details about how the tourism office notifies advertisers of changing policies, and Mulch did not respond to inquiries on Friday.
The state office’s policy on dispensary ads remains in limbo. Its brochure guidelines, last updated before Colorado legalized marijuana, prohibit advertising for federally illegal substances, a rule that hasn’t been enforced for years. But now, Mulch said, it may be time to update the state policy.
“Obviously, marijuana is now a part of Colorado ... but we don’t want to do anything illegal,” she said.
This story has been changed to reflect the correct spelling of Kirstin Graber's name.
