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Denver pot shops could stay open until midnight under council committee proposal
DENVER – Denverites wouldn’t have to drive to Glendale or Edgewater for their late-night marijuana runs if a proposed bill under discussion Monday in the city council’s special-issue marijuana committee becomes law.
The committee met Monday afternoon to hear the bill that would allow Denver’s recreational and medical marijuana shops to stay open until midnight. But it decided to postpone action on the bill to take more time to discuss it.
Should it pass, it would give people an extra five hours each day to shop for pot, and extra time to profit off sales for city pot businesses. Denver’s shops are currently open until 7 p.m., as are Colorado Springs’ medical shops.
Glendale and Edgewater already allow their shops to stay open until midnight, while shops in Aurora, Boulder and Commerce City can stay open until 10 p.m.
When the state legalized recreational marijuana in 2014, it said shops could be open from 8 a.m. until midnight each day, but it also allowed municipalities to determine the hours the shops would stay open.
And in 2015, the state allowed medical shops to stay open for the same hours as recreational shops.
Discussions to keep Denver’s shops open longer have been ongoing for years, but took a step forward in January, when the proposal first was discussed.
Kristi Kelly, the head of the Marijuana Industry Group, is slated to present at Monday’s hearing, as are other marijuana industry leaders and the city attorney’s office.
Proponents of extending shop hours have argued doing so would make the city more competitive with its neighbors, despite the city having raked in about half of last year’s sales statewide.
A Denver Post questionnaire done ahead of the last city council election found many of the current councilors said they would at least consider extending marijuana shop hours.
The bill’s next hearing date has yet to be set.
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24 million Americans would lose insurance under GOP proposal to replace Obamacare by 2026, CBO says
DENVER – Twenty-four million people who would be insured under Obamacare would not have insurance under the new health care bill supported by President Trump and House Republicans by 2026, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released Monday.
The CBO report, also compiled with the Joint Committee on Taxation, has been highly-anticipated since House Republicans first introduced the American Health Care Act just more than a week ago, as it anticipates the expected impacts on the federal budget and American people. The JCT released some initial estimates last week. Continue reading
Army hopes $10K reward, DNA phenotype will help solve 1987 Colorado murder
DENVER – The U.S. Army is offering a $10,000 reward to anyone who can help find the killer of a young woman stationed at Fort Carson who was murdered nearly 30 years ago to date.
The Army, working with the Colorado Springs Police Department, has completed DNA phenotyping testing and put together composite images of what the alleged killer of 20-year-old Army Spc. Darlene Krashoc looked like in 1987 and what he looks like now.
Krashoc, 20, was stationed at Fort Carson and was assigned to the 73rd Maintenance Company when she was found dead March 17, 1987 in the parking lot of a restaurant near Hancock and S. Academy. The restaurant was known as the Korean Club restaurant at the time.
The Army says Krashoc had been at a club called Shuffles with several other members of her unit earlier in the night. The club was located about two miles north of where she was found dead.
Krashoc was last seen leaving Shuffles between midnight and 1 a.m. Her body was found behind the restaurant at 5:30 a.m.
After years of investigating, the case went cold, according to the Army. But investigators eventually reopened the case in 2004, and DNA testing was done on evidence.
The testing found that the DNA belonged to an unknown man.
Last year, the Army and Colorado Springs Police Department submitted more than two dozen pieces of evidence to the Army’s Criminal Investigation Laboratory and a private DNA company for additional DNA analysis and phenotyping.
The DNA phenotyping company was able to come up with the approximate age of the suspect both when the murder occurred and his current age, as well as descriptors.
The Army notes that the composites it released “are not likely to be exact replicas of appearance” because some non-environmental factors can’t be determined by DNA.
Both the Army Criminal Investigation Command and CSPD are looking for help in identifying the suspect.
Anyone who might know who he is or have further information is asked to contact the local Army CID office, the CID Headquarters in Virginia (1-844-ARMY-CID or 571-305-4375 or Army.CID.Crime.Tips@mail.mil) or CSPD at 719-444-7000.
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Report estimates new health care bill will cause 15 million to lose coverage, possibly millions more
DENVER – A report out Friday from the Brookings Institution says it is likely the Congressional Budget Office will estimate more than 15 million people would lose health care coverage under the new House GOP bill.
The CBO is expected to release its projections Monday on how many people might lose health insurance, and how much premiums and out-of-pocket costs might amount to under the American Health Care Act – the bill House Republicans have put forth to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
The budget office provides nonpartisan analysis of the effects legislation and other orders might have on the national budget and on Americans. It has no political affiliation or motivations.
The projections released Friday by Brookings Institution are based off prior CBO analysis and was compiled as part of the Leonard D. Schaeffer Initiative in Health Policy.
The analysis finds that it’s likely CBO will determine at least 15 million people will lose coverage by 2026.
“Estimates could be higher, but it’s is [sic] unlikely they will be significantly lower,” the report says.
It says that the ACHA’s repeal of the individual mandate contained in the ACA, better known as Obamacare, would leave 15 million uninsured. Further, the report says, the parts of the new bill affecting Medicaid would lead to “significant coverage losses, likely on the order of several million.”
The main basis for the report’s judgments is a recently-released CBO report that estimated that repealing the individual mandate of the ACA would cause individual premiums to increase by 20 percent and lead to 6 million people losing insurance by 2026.
Another CBO report determined that another 2 million would lose employer coverage and that another 7 million would lose Medicaid coverage.
Many, including Colorado Republican Sen. Cory Gardner, have voiced concerns about the provision that would end Medicaid expansion allowed under the ACA in 2020, and would further penalize people who had lapses in coverage. Others still have voiced concerns over a move to use tax credits that analysts have said benefit the wealthy more than low-income people and are 36 percent lower than the tax credits available under the ACA.
The CBO report is expected to have huge ramifications on the bill’s fate in Congress. It has already received significant pushback from both Democrats and conservatives, but passed through two House committees without significant changes.
On Friday, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said that he didn’t believe that “individuals will lose coverage at all.”
But House Speaker Paul Ryan, who has led the effort to push the new bill quickly through Congress said, “We always know you’re never going to win a beauty contest when it’s free market versus government mandate,” according to a Vox report.
Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., has joined a growing list of members of Congress to say they would not vote on the new bill until they received estimates from the CBO.
“We’re not about to let the tyranny of the majority in Congress leave people vulnerable just because House GOP wants to jam this bill through,” she tweeted.
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Texas duo wanted in connection to murder arrested in Aurora
AURORA, Colo. – A Texas duo wanted in connection with the March 7 murder of a young woman was captured Thursday by law enforcement officers in Aurora.
Christopher Stogsdill, 26, and Sierra Diaz, 20, were discovered, along with Diaz’s two infant children, just north of the APD station on East 23rd Avenue.
The two are accused of being involved in the shooting death of Shelby Trotnic in Montgomery County, Texas on Tuesday. The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office and Texas Rangers had obtained a murder warrant for Stogsdill’s arrest and a child endangerment warrant for Diaz because of the living conditions at her Texas home.
Trotnic was shot in the head and killed. She had been living with Stogsdill and Diaz, according to the sheriff’s office.
The Aurora Police Department and Rocky Mountain Safe Streets Fugitive Task Force took part in the arrests of both. Texas Rangers and detectives are in Aurora to interview the pair.
The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office says the two children will be returned to Texas to live with other family members.
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Two Denver deputies disciplined for errors that led to late release of inmates
DENVER – Two Denver deputies were suspended for two days in February in the latest disciplinary actions this year at the Denver jail.
The Denver Post reports that deputies Kevin Bennett and Gregory Shimek were suspended for paperwork and computer data entry errors that kept inmates in jail for at least two days longer than they were supposed to be incarcerated.
The disciplinary records were obtained by The Post through an open records request.
The incidents come amid a push at the Denver Sheriff Department, which operates the city’s jail, to work to fix problems with the recordkeeping process at the jail, which Sheriff Patrick Firman says is outdated.
The Post reports the department is working to buy a new system that it hopes will improve clerical errors that the department and jail worry make them prone to lawsuits. The disciplines are the second and third of the year.
The discipline was Bennett’s first in 15 years on the force, while Shimek had been disciplined for a similar mistake just two months earlier.
Read the full story at The Denver Post.
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Police arrest 16-year-old in New Orleans for July 2016 murder of Colorado Springs man
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – A 16-year-old boy was arrested in New Orleans Thursday on murder charges in relation to the murder of a 20-year-old man in Colorado Springs last July.
Gary Thomas, 20, was shot and killed outside of a McDonald’s on S. Academy Boulevard in the early-morning hours of July 16, 2016.
Colorado Springs police announced Friday the suspect, a 16-year-old boy, was arrested Thursday in New Orleans on a warrant for first-degree murder. The warrant was issued March 7.
Since the suspect is a minor, his identity and mugshot are not being released. There were at least 20 murders in Colorado Springs last year.
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Aurora couple’s 2 infants die 2 years apart while co-sleeping; parents face misdemeanors
AURORA, Colo. – Two Aurora parents face misdemeanor child abuse charges stemming from the co-sleeping deaths of two of their infant children that happened in 2014 and 2016.
Gregory Tyler Newton, 27, and Tierra Collins, 28, had warrants for their arrest on the charges issued and served in late February.
But since the causes of death for both children were deemed “undetermined” in autopsies, both face only two second-degree misdemeanor charges for child abuse without injury knowingly or recklessly caused.
If convicted, each would face a maximum penalty of a year in jail and $1,000 fine for each charge.
The first child died in July 2014 and the second died in late June 2016.
In both cases, Newton and Collins had been sleeping with the child after allegedly drinking and using marijuana, according to arrest affidavits for both.
It’s unclear in the affidavits exactly what caused the children’s deaths, but in both cases, Collins was alleged to have been inebriated and difficult to wake when they babies were found not breathing. Collins’ brother found the baby in 2014 and Newton found the child last year.
Also in both instances, police investigating the cases found their home to be filthy: littered with liquor and beer empties, cigarette butts, dirty diapers and other trash.
Also in both cases, according to the affidavits, Collins appeared unaffected by the fact her babies weren’t breathing. The affidavits also say that Collins had drank and smoked throughout her first pregnancy, and continued to drink occasionally during the pregnancy with the second child. A person who knows the couple described her as an alcoholic.
In both cases, coroners noted that neither baby was found with any obvious trauma and tested negative for drugs and alcohol. But both noted that the babies were in an “unsafe sleep environment,” though the causes and manners of death of both children were both deemed “undetermined.”
Collins took part in the Family Nursing Partnership Program, which brings a nurse to a new mother’s home to educate them in preventative health practices during pre- and post-natal care.
The nurse who worked with Collins repeatedly told her it was unsafe to sleep with her children, but Collins continued to do so, saying that was the way she was brought up, according to the affidavit.
Collins had status hearings in 18th Judicial District Court on March 1 and 7. A pretrial conference for her case is set for April 24. Newton is due in court April 10.
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Colorado may owe feds millions after Medicaid overpayment due to ‘human programming error’
DENVER – Colorado is trying to figure out how to set aside $25 million in case it needs to pay the federal government back after a computer programming error led to the state being overpaid by millions of dollars in Medicaid funds.
On Feb. 15, Office of State Planning and Budgeting Director Henry Sobanet sent a letter to Sen. Kent Lambert, the chair of the Joint Budget Committee, informing him of the overpayment. Continue reading
Colorado Senate passes marijuana membership clubs bill on to House, but Hickenlooper has concerns
DENVER – A bill that would authorize towns, cities and counties to allow private marijuana clubs in their jurisdiction is headed to the Colorado House after passing a full Senate vote Thursday morning.
Senate Bill 184 passed its third reading and a full Senate vote, 25-10.
The bill has undergone several changes in Senate committees and on the floor.
As it sits now, the bill would allow jurisdictions that have authorized private marijuana clubs, as Denver did in November, to operate them under a series of strict parameters:
- The members and employees of the cub must all be at least 21 years old.
- The club’s owner must have been a Colorado resident for at least two years before owning the club.
- The club’s employees must all be Colorado residents.
- The club won’t be able to sell or serve alcohol or food.
- The club can’t sell marijuana, nor can it allow others to sell or “exchange…for remuneration” marijuana on the club’s premises.
- Marijuana could not be consumed “openly” or “publicly.”
The bill would also require that the clubs be private and not accessible to the general public. Both medical and recreational could be used within the club.
The bill’s Senate sponsor, Sen. Bob Gardner, R-El Paso County, told Denver7 last week that the way marijuana clubs were currently operating amounted to the “Wild West.”
The 10 votes against the bill Thursday morning all came from Republicans, but the bill passed with several Republicans in favor.
The bill also has favorable chances in the Democrat-controlled House, though it has already undergone several changes since it was first introduced and could undergo more.
But should it pass the House, the bill could still face defeat at the governor’s desk.
Gov. John Hickenlooper told Denver7 he would review the bill should it reach his desk, and questioned whether such measures should be implemented amid many unknowns regarding marijuana programs and how they will be treated under the new administration and attorney general.
He also voiced concerns Wednesday to the Denver Post that allowing people to smoke marijuana indoors would allow a “crack in the door” to the law banning smoking indoors.
His concern over possible federal changes also applies to Senate Bill 192, which would allow marijuana deliveries in Colorado.
Senate Bill 184’s first House hearing has yet to be scheduled.
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