A visit to Crested Butte’s first medical marijuana dispensary

Ice cream is a big hit

Crested Butte’s newest business looks pretty low-key from the outside. A small sign in the window says you have arrived at “Boom Town, Crested Butte Alternative Medicine.” Welcome to the first medical marijuana dispensary in the county to open its doors.

Boom Town opened Thursday afternoon, June 24. The first item sold that day was a gram of marijuana bud to a carded patient. “But we also sold freezer pops and ice cream that day, too,” says Boom Town co-owner Stephen Hattendorf.
The ice cream and freezer pops are infused with medical marijuana. Hattendorf says so far this summer, the ice cream offering is probably the most popular.
He and his wife Debbie sit in the waiting room pleasantly chatting to patients and talk to me about the attributes of medical marijuana.
The biggest sign on the outside of the shop, located at 310 Belleview Avenue, is a standard “Yes, We’re Open” sign from True Value. The waiting area is still pretty stark. A couple of mirrors and wildlife photos hang on the white wall. A TV is on in the corner, with a red couch and comfortable plush red chair for seating. Bugs the dog is laying on the floor, cooling in the afternoon breeze by the open door.
An air purification system is humming in the background but there seems to be a slight, underlying scent of marijuana in the room.
The town’s initial “Medical Marijuana Dispensary Permit” is taped to the wall next to the door that leads to the medical area. Unless you have a valid medical marijuana card or paperwork, you cannot go into the back room where the medicine is displayed.
“Business has been pretty steady,” Hattendorf says. “We are probably seeing 10 to 15 patients a day so far. I am grateful and encouraged—given the time of year, given that the college is not in session, given that so far it’s all been word-of-mouth letting people know we are open—I am pleased.”
Hattendorf explains that the dispensary is open from 9 a.m. until 7 p.m., the hours allowed under the town code. “The morning from 9 to 11 is pretty much coffee time and catch up on the Internet time,” he says. “We see a lot of people around lunch and get a small rush later in the afternoon after work from about 5 to 7.”
Hattendorf says the owners and management of Boom Town are “big on edibles because a lot of people who need medical marijuana don’t want to smoke. They want an alternative method.”
He runs down a list of medically infused products that are behind the door. Candy bars, muffins, cookies, brownies, freezer pops, take-n-bake pizzas, soda pop, ice cream and ice cream sandwiches. Even bubble gum is for sale.
Boom Town also carries tinctures, hash, kief (powdery dried marijuana resin), and regular marijuana bud. In fact, there are 17 different strains of marijuana bud for sale.
“So far the ice cream is the biggest hit,” he says. “We’ve sold more ice cream than anything else. We have more coming and are working on other ideas for edibles.”
Ice cream sandwiches are sold for $16. Tax is included in the price with products sold in Boom Town. Muffins and freezer pops go for between $5 and $8. Buds of marijuana are for sale from $16 to $20 per gram. “It’s all good quality but the price depends on rarity or potency,” says Hattendorf.
As we sit in the waiting area chatting, a guy from Pueblo walks in. He’s driving back from California and wants to purchase some medical marijuana. He fills out the paperwork that gives Boom Town his temporary caregivership. Under Colorado law, everyone with a card needs a designated caregiver.
“I graduated from Western in the 80s and was coming through Gunnison today,” he told me. “I thought Gunnison might have a dispensary but they told me I had to come up here.”
Pueblo Guy, who didn’t give his name, said he got approved for his card on May 11. The state is so backed up with requests that the cards are just now being sent to patients who were approved in October 2009.
“I have hip and back problems,” explains Pueblo Guy. “I don’t want to take manufactured drugs and the doctors originally tried to put me on Celebrex and Vioxx. I didn’t like that idea. The medical marijuana definitely takes away the pain. The only thing I don’t like about it is smoking it but the edibles don’t seem strong enough for me. I stick to smoking marijuana and taking aspirin. I don’t even use Tylenol.”
Pueblo Guy says, “I’m pretty conservative and maybe the state should tighten it up, but I totally support medical marijuana.”
As it turns out, he couldn’t produce his actual paperwork and his home dispensary wouldn’t email it. He left without buying anything.
Boom Town is still trying to figure out all the hoops for the business at the state and local levels and Hattendorf admits that’s not easy. His wife, Debbie, says they are in daily contact with the “best lawyer in the state for this issue” to make sure they are doing everything by the letter of the law.
Right now, Boom Town is looking for a grow space. They are investigating spaces in Denver, Boulder and Paonia. State law is mandating that at least 70 percent of product sold in a dispensary be produced by the dispensary.
When I comment that Paonia is easy to get to in the summer but a bit tougher when Kebler Pass is closed, Hattendorf reminds me, “That’s why God invented snowmobiles.”
Hattendorf says no one can purchase more than two ounces of medical marijuana at a time. The average amount they’ve sold to patients is an eighth of an ounce.
“We figure there are probably somewhere between 100 and 200 people in the Crested Butte area with legal cards,” Hattendorf says. “We’ve seen probably seen 40 of them in the first five days of being open.”
In the back room there is a freezer for the marijuana-infused ice cream, a refrigerator for the marijuana-infused soda and a glass display case for everything else medical marijuana. A microscope is on the counter if you want to take a closer look at the bud. A price board is on the wall with dollar amounts for the different strains of bud for sale.
Locally there is a moratorium on medical marijuana in the county and in the city of Gunnison. The town of Crested Butte allows it but has a limit of five dispensaries. The town has approved all five applications for dispensaries but only Boom Town is open. The others are completing the appropriate inspections and paperwork. Of the other four applicants, three have space on the same block and the fourth is still seeking a space.
The 300 block of Belleview is certainly Crested Butte’s new Boom Town.