The Takeover: How cannabis growers have transformed the small town of Moffat into a mecca of marijuana.
“So, this is the original town,” he says, circling a clump of lots hugging State Highway 17. Then his finger veers west. “This portion, this little triangle here, is Phase One. This is Phase Two and Phase Three. We recently acquired another sixty acres that we annexed into town, and we’re going to be using that for solar.”
Biggio’s rebranding idea has been met with more than a few guffaws, but he says he’s deadly serious about it. The valley climate produces a cannabis crop not unlike that found in theof central Asia, he explains, and putting Kush, Colorado, on the map would draw weed connoisseurs from far and wide. Biggio expects smooth sailing. He argues that the town of Moffat is too easily confused with Moffat County in northwest Colorado and that the town has little in the way of a name-brand identity worth saving. “There is no heritage here,” he declares. “The railroad’s long gone. People call it Methy Moffat. That’s what it’s known for. If ever there was a town that needed a rebrand, this is it.
Developer Justice, who lives in Snowmass Village, says her company has taken no official position on the name change. “I have nothing to do with it,” she says. “It’s not appropriate for a woman in the Aspen area to tell people who live 200 miles away what to call themselves. There are people who would like to capitalize on the green rush that’s happening there. I understand that, but I’m neither for it nor against it.
At one point the Moffat area boasted a population of 2,500 and a brass band that greeted visitors as they disembarked from the passenger trains that arrived twice a day. But the town’s heyday was brief. The mines stopped producing. Farms dried up, the water rights sold or diverted. The railroad reduced service and then suspended it altogether. By 1950, Moffat had slipped into a sleepy half-life, its population hovering around a hundred or so.
Biggio checked out Crestone, an artist colony and spiritual center, but found it too esoteric for his tastes. “It’s a free-range mental institution,” he scoffs. “Not a place to do business.” The deal hammered out with town officials gave Area 420 the kind of partnership with local government that many corporations lust for. The company agreed to pay the costs of extending water and power lines and roads to the new development and for improvements to a municipal well; in return, the operation obtained access to cheap municipal water and a certain degree of protection from county interference.
Justice denies that her company failed to meet any of its obligations. She says she attempted to deliver a check for the utility center on several occasions, only to be thwarted by Reigel’s efforts to change the terms of the deal. The bathrooms and laundry are now being built on Area 420 land, she reports.
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