{"id":23246,"date":"2025-03-03T22:47:14","date_gmt":"2025-03-04T05:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/legislation-designates-march-3-aka-303-day-as-buy-colorado-day\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:30:47","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:30:47","slug":"legislation-designates-march-3-aka-303-day-as-buy-colorado-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/legislation-designates-march-3-aka-303-day-as-buy-colorado-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Legislation designates March 3 \u2013 aka 303 Day \u2013 as \u2018Buy Colorado Day\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Flags
Flags fly at half-staff in front of the dome of the Colorado State Capitol. (David Zalubowski\/Associated Press file)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Coloradans love their Colorado stuff.<\/p>\n

So why not formalize that affection with an official Buy Colorado Day state holiday? Lawmakers on Monday plan to designate March 3 as an annual celebration of Colorado\u2019s homegrown entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe love to support our own in Colorado, not just the businesses that manufacture but our farmers and ranchers and grocers and mom-and-pop shops that are the backbone of our economy in Colorado,\u201d state Senate President James Coleman said. \u201cSo let\u2019s have a day when we can purchase locally crafted goods and support our own.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coleman said one of his favorite Colorado brands is Wild Boyd Farm in Matheson, west of Colorado Springs.<\/p>\n

\u201cA Black-owned and operated Colorado-native business where you can get pasture-raised beef, goat, lamb, pork, free-range chickens, goat milk, eggs,\u201d Coleman said. \u201cWe love them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senate Joint Resolution 8 designates March 3 \u2013 known as 303 Day, for Colorado\u2019s formerly statewide area code \u2013 as Buy Colorado Day and March 3-10 as Buy Colorado Week with a nod to the state\u2019s 700,000 small businesses that employ 1.2 million residents. The resolution cheers Colorado as a first home to Crocs<\/a>, snap-button cowboy shirts<\/a>, Jolly Ranchers<\/a>, Coors Banquet<\/a> beer, the Chipotle burrito<\/a>, OtterBox<\/a>, Celestial Seasonings<\/a> teas, the Polar Bottle<\/a> and \u201ceven the cheeseburger<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The resolution \u2013 recognizing \u201cthat Colorado businesses and brands are one of the many reasons that Colorado is the best state in the country\u201d \u2013 explains that 69% of the 13,000 restaurants in the state are independently owned and generate more than $20 billion in annual economic activity. And there are more than 100 craft distilleries in the state and more than 400 craft breweries. The state\u2019s agricultural industry generates $47 billion in economic activity and employs nearly 200,000 people. The resolution also notes the groundbreaking cannabis businesses that have thrived in Colorado as well as the state\u2019s consumer packaged goods businesses that export $2.3 billion of the state\u2019s food products a year.<\/p>\n

\u201cLaunching a new state holiday to create an economic driver for local brands makes total sense,\u201d said Matt Williams, the CEO of Topo Designs<\/a>, which is a founding member of Buy Colorado Day. Topo Designs was born in 2008 when Jedd Rose and Mark Hansen started sewing durable and functional packs in a Fort Collins basement.<\/p>\n

Today, Topo Designs has all kinds of bags and packs as well as outerwear and clothing. Topo Designs has been focused on opening stores, with two new locations in San Francisco, stores in L.A. and Boston, two in Denver, one in Fort Collins and pop-ups at Denver International Airport.<\/p>\n

\u201cColoradans built this brand. They allowed us to open international popup stores and people around the world know Topo as a Colorado brand,\u201d Williams said. \u201cThe only way we have been able to scale and get global recognition is because of the people in Colorado who were the early adopters.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Colorado folks are a picky lot. We like local, but we love quality.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat multiuse customer we have in Colorado is what triggers our quality because it has to hold up,\u201d said Williams, who counts Denver\u2019s Icelantic Skis as one of his favorite Colorado-born brands.<\/p>\n

Ricardo Baca, a former journalist and founder of Denver\u2019s Grasslands public relations agency, was the primary force behind Buy Colorado Day. He persuaded Colorado Sens. Jeff Bridges and Judy Amabile, who cofounded Polar Bottle in 1994, as well as Democratic Rep. Shannon Bird and Republican Rep. Rick Taggart to support the designation of the new state holiday.<\/p>\n

His hope is that Buy Colorado Day reaches all of Colorado\u2019s industries. And eventually, the push toward Colorado\u2019s homegrown brands spills beyond the state\u2019s borders.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there is this global affinity for the Colorado lifestyle,\u201d Baca said. \u201cWe really do want to create something that becomes a sustainable economic driver, not just by encouraging Coloradans to buy locally, but getting the word out internationally and encouraging the world to buy Never Summer or Pop Socket to Topo Designs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baca\u2019s favorite brands include KONG in Golden<\/a>, which has been making pet toys since 1976, Boulder-born Bobo\u2019s Oat Bars<\/a>, Golden\u2019s venerable Yeti Cycles<\/a> and Salida SUP and raft maker Badfish<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been eyeing the Badfish 13-footer for a while,\u201d Baca said.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘We really do want to create something that becomes a sustainable economic driver,\u2019 advocate says<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23247,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[431,394,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-business-general","tag-colorado-legislature","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23246"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78035,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23246\/revisions\/78035"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23246"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}