It took a while for Aurora’s recreational marijuana shops to open, but now that the first one opened its doors in Colorado’s third-largest city this morning, parents in the area are taking notice.
One parent commented on our news item Monday morning that he or she has organized more than 24 other parents from neighboring Cherry Creek Schools to spy on the city’s new recreational pot shops — to see if they recognize anyone, to take photos to share with one another, to “publicly shame those who think pot is cool,” according to the comment from user the3Ds, who apparently works at Denver International Airport, lives in Tallyn’s Reach and volunteers at her daughter’s school library.
According to the reader’s comment, their group will “document every person who walks into that shop. We will also make an effort to take a photo and send it around to each other to see if it’s a parent at one of our kid’s schools. We have also promised to tell everyone we know that the parent is a pot-head and make sure to notify the Principals that we don’t want that parent chaperoning our children’s field trips, driving carpool to school events or hosting our kids at their house for slumber parties and playdates.”
In other words: This group of parents doesn’t want you anywhere near their kids if you use marijuana in any capacity. As the comment says, “Suburban parents love to gossip.”
The comment continues: “Coming to the wealthy suburbs with good schools and low crime means that there are plenty of us concerned parents who aren’t thrilled with our new neighbor and will do all we can to publicly shame those who think pot is cool. Perhaps they can go the ghetto where no one cares what they do.
“We moved to the suburbs for a reason and we aren’t going to watch our neighborhood to go hell. Go somewhere else.”
The reader said the 24 volunteers were gathered via the Cherry Creek Schools Parents’ Council, but the president of the organization said she’s never heard of such an effort and that the Parents’ Council has nothing to do with the spying.
“This is the first I’ve heard about it,” said Lisa Chaiken, president of the Cherry Creek Schools Parents’ Council. “It has nothing to do with Parents’ Council or any of our board members. Parents’ Council has nothing to do with that issue. It’s never been on any part of our agenda.”
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A call to the Parents’ Council’s district liason Scott Siegfried, also the associate superintendent of educational operations for the district, was directed to Cherry Creek’s director of communications Tustin Amole.
“It wasn’t brought up in the open session this morning,” Amole said of the Parents’ Council meeting Monday morning. “It’s an independent parent group, not a district-run group. I know nothing about this, but they could do that on their own. They don’t need our permission or knowledge.”
Other readers responded on the original post, bringing forth more comments from the3Ds, including:
“The upper class suburbs are no place for potheads…as this store will soon find out.”
“Publicly shaming parents is a great way to get things done.”
Map: Colorado recreational marijuana shops and medical dispensaries
After another response read the3Ds’ past comments and accused him or her of being a racist, elitist homophobe, the3Ds responded: “It’s simple peer pressure really. Plus it gives us something to do besides burning crosses in our minority neighbor’s yards and terrorizing homosexuals.”
Our colleague who reported on Aurora’s first pot shop opening this morning didn’t see any folks there who looked like they were spying on people entering the shop, but he did talk with customer Ray Saccomano who calmly said, “I’ve been waiting for this. It’s just down the street from my daughter’s day care.”