{"id":48925,"date":"2021-01-31T03:30:46","date_gmt":"2021-01-31T10:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-town-board-approves-livwell-move-to-former-millwood-junction-building\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:45:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:45:07","slug":"mancos-town-board-approves-livwell-move-to-former-millwood-junction-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-town-board-approves-livwell-move-to-former-millwood-junction-building\/","title":{"rendered":"Mancos Town Board approves LivWell move to former Millwood Junction building"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Marijuana
Marijuana dispensary LivWell received approval last week to move into the building that was formerly home to the Millwood Junction restaurant, above.<\/span>The Journal file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The empty Millwood Junction building, 101 W. Railroad Ave., sits at the town\u2019s primary intersection of Colorado Highway 184 and U.S. Highway 160.<\/p>\n

According to board members Wednesday night, LivWell met all legal and permitting requirements necessary to move in.<\/p>\n

Mancos Town Administrator Heather Alvarez, in a report to the board, noted that the LivWell business will be 2,500 square feet or less at this time. The building is 3,140 square feet, so there is the opportunity for a future special exception request should the LivWell wish to increase the size of its business. Alvarez also noted that traffic flow concerns had been addressed by LivWell and the Colorado Department of Transportation.<\/p>\n

Mancos Marshal Justen Goodall reviewed the application and had no objection to the change.<\/p>\n

LivWell intitially attempted a move to a different location in Mancos, but didn\u2019t move forward with it because of \u201ccostly and time intensive mandatory development obligations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company has allocated $800,000 for building and landscape improvements to Millwood as a gesture of good faith to the community.<\/p>\n

Mancos Marshal Justen Goodall reviewed the application and had no objection to the change.<\/p>\n

Of concern at Wednesday\u2019s meeting was the business\u2019 proximity to nearby Boyle Park. Municipal statute dictates that a marijuana dispensary cannot be within 500 feet of a park. The board approved LivWell\u2019s location based on a measurement by Alvarez and Marshal Goodall, as well as a measurement from licensed surveyor SGM.<\/p>\n

But many Mancos residents were unhappy with the idea a dispensary at such a central location of the town.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople come from all over the world, and they go up to Mesa Verde,\u201d said Mancos resident Diane Parrinello. \u201cAnd they go up there to look at the ruins of Mesa Verde for a very specific reason. Because it\u2019s history, and it has significance. They want to see it. The Millwood has that kind of significance to the people in this area. It has an energy to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Millwood site is the focal point of our town. And I for one don\u2019t want our town to have the focal point for everyone that comes through here to be a marijuana dispensary right on the corner,\u201d said Marlis Delaronde. \u201cTo be honest, I would rather see the building razed and they put up a gas station.\u201d<\/p>\n

LivWell general counsel and minority owner Anna Hatch emphasized the company\u2019s compliance with local ordinances and its ties to the community. \u201cIt has come to a point where we do need to find a new location for our store,\u201d Hatch said. \u201cWe did not set out to find the most contentious location we could possibly have. We see an empty building at the main corner of your town. We\u2019re not trying to go above and beyond and make this a destination that\u2019s associated with marijuana, but marijuana is a part of your town, and we have been here. We fully intend to continue to be a good neighbor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alvarez said she was unaware of any other potential businesses that were interested in buying the building, even after reaching out to Durango businesses and attempting to coordinate with the Region 9 Economic Development District to find suitors.<\/p>\n

Trustee Janice Bryan argued that the marijuana industry boom in Colorado could not be ignored.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of the fastest growing industries, and they\u2019re going to be bringing jobs, Bryan said. \u201cI think our town deserves to have something that brings in some income, jobs and clean industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other board members made it clear that they had a legal obligation to approve the change of location.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would actually be illegal of us to deny this tonight because they\u2019ve met the sections of the code that they need to meet,\u201d said Trustee Cindy Simpson.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur hands are tied. We have no choice to approve or face a lawsuit. It\u2019s not a situation where peoples\u2019 feeling are relevant to this,\u201d said Trustee Ed Hallam.<\/p>\n

The board voted 5-1 to approve the change of location. Hallam was the only dissenting vote, but only because he wanted further clarification on the accuracy of the surveys.<\/p>\n

Medical marijuana businesses were approved in Mancos in 2010, and retail marijuana was approved in 2014.<\/p>\n

anicotera@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marijuana dispensary LivWell received approval last week to move into the building that was formerly home to the Millwood Junction restaurant, above.The Journal file The empty Millwood Junction building, 101 W. Railroad Ave., sits at the town\u2019s primary intersection of Colorado Highway 184 and U.S. Highway 160. According to board members Wednesday night, LivWell met […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,83,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-48925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-mancos","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48925","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=48925"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87490,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48925\/revisions\/87490"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48925"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=48925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}