FRISCO — In a sprawling Frisco shopping center, between a Walmart and the Wine Cellar liquor store, Dawn Mlatecek was doing banner business selling marijuana Wednesday without the aid of a sign outside.
Now that the law has changed, permit constraints on her business, Bioenergetic Healing Center, she can change the name to Herbal Bliss and signal the product to passing customers.
“To sit down and read them” she said of the mishmash of rules governing sales, “at the end of the day it’s mind-boggling, and they’re constantly changing them.”
A friendly Frisco police officer in uniform stopped by, seemingly just to say hi, just before noon.
“They said they’d be checking in, just to see if everything’s OK and if we have any questions,” Mlatecek said. “The city has been great”
A few doors down, at High Altitude gift shop, a laminated list of marijuana do’s and don’ts for users was taped to the glass entrance. The sign was embossed with the town’s letterhead.
Michelle “Muggsy” Ehrenberg, sells “tobacco” pipes and other products pot users might employ, along with post cards and T-shirts.
She’s been in business for 18 years and expects products sold down the way to increase her sales, as well.
“It’s a one-stop shop,” she said of the two otherwise unrelated enterprises.
She’s careful to maintain the likely facade that her goods are for tobacco, not cannabis, however.
“I’m still not totally sure what the federal government is going to do, and we got a government loan to start this business,” Ehrenberg said.
But she notes the volume of tourists in this mountain town and the corresponding sales of cheap, disposable pipes and grinders that can be tossed rather than taken out of state.
Joel Maduro, who relocated from Arizona to Summit County in October, waited for his chance to buy weed Wednesday morning then wander down to Ehrenberg’s store.
“I’ve been waiting for this as long as I’ve been smoking,” he said of his decade of patience.
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174, jbunch@denverpost.com or twitter.com/joeybunch
