The city of Brighton is about to get a little greener.
This week, the Brighton City Council voted 7-2 to allow recreational marijuana shops for the first time. The council-approved ordinance allows for the establishment of four stores, with two of the licenses reserved for social equity applicants. Applications open March 1.
This will be the first time Brighton, which is located primarily in Adams County, has ever allowed cannabis businesses within city limits, despite the fact that recreational weed has been legal in Colorado for a decade and medical marijuana has been legal since 2000. The city still prohibits cultivation and manufacturing businesses.
According to spokesperson Kristen Chernosky, Brighton’s leaders have considered allowing cannabis for several years, but a recent change in city council personnel made it a more timely topic.
“We have a new council that did have an interest in exploring what this would mean to this city,” she said.
Potential tax revenue was also an important factor in the decision, Chernosky said. Colorado has collected more than $2.6 billion in state tax and fee revenue since legal sales began in 2014. That’s in addition to municipal taxes, which have helped fund projects such as a government complex in Edgewater and a recreation center in Aurora.
Brighton estimates an $800,000 boost annually — $200,000 per location — from marijuana taxes.
“We’re always looking for ways to increase funding sources and this is a new way to bring additional funding to the city,” Chernosky said.
Brighton may be a latecomer to Colorado’s cannabis scene, but it’s hardly the only one. When the state legalized sales, it left the decision to allow them up to individual municipalities. In short, towns and cities needed to opt in to permit the establishment of marijuana businesses.
Some, like Denver, did so immediately, but others have been slow to adopt legal weed. Morrison, the hometown of Red Rocks Amphitheatre, only issued its first cannabis license in 2023. The first stores in Grand Junction, the largest city on the Western Slope, opened in 2023.
According to the Marijuana Enforcement Division, there are more than 1,000 medical and recreational dispensaries and stores operating throughout the state.
