SharleneMusic Updated Dec. 2017 Westword‘s Michael Roberts writes: As promised, Miguel Lopez, founder of the Denver 420 Rally, has filed a lawsuit against the City and County of Denver after losing his priority event status and being banned from putting on the event during the next three years for allegedly violating his permit by leaving Civic Center Park trashed. Article excerpts continue, below. Check out Miguel Lopez v. City and County of Denver Summons, here. Where is weed legal? NORML. What are your rights? PDF.
According to the June 2017 Colorado Medical Marijuana Registry report, almost 84,000 Coloradans have an active Medical Marijuana registration and 651 physicians have recommended Medical Marijuana for one or more patients on the registry. The average age of the men is 43 and the average age of the women is 47. To support this growing community of filmmakers, artists, musicians and writers, Infinite Perimeter Films is planning to hold the first annual Colorado International Cannabis & Hemp Film Festival in April 2018 at Denver Open Media. Submissions began September 15, 2017.
Article continues here….Attorney Rob Corry, who represents Lopez, calls Denver’s actions “improper” and maintains that officials manipulated the reaction to the park’s condition following the April 20, 2017, edition as a strategy to violate his client’s rights.
“The city created the negative publicity,” Corry says about the suit, which is accessible below along with two additional documents. “Denver teed this up as a PR strategy from the beginning and stoked the flames of this made-up trash issue. Of course there was trash on the ground during a certain period of time. You don’t have 100,000 people in a park without some trash. But we cleaned it up within our deadline, and then the city whipped up this response. And we can prove it.”
The situation is complicated, given that Corry represents both Lopez and Michael Ortiz, who was awarded the permit for the rally after the aforementioned ban. Moreover, Corry confirms that Lopez and Ortiz are negotiating for the right to use the Denver 420 Rally name, which he contends was “pioneered” by the former. However, he notes that “the deadline for filing this case was Friday [December 14]. So we filed to preserve Miguel Lopez’s ability to challenge the denial of his priority status and the prohibition on him applying.”
If Lopez wins the case, would Ortiz then be put in the position of filing a suit of his own? “I don’t see it that way,” Corry replies.
“If Miguel Lopez prevails in this case — which is a strong possibility, because Denver doesn’t really have any facts to stand on — he’ll get the permit, because he has priority status. So Michael Ortiz wouldn’t really have the ability to challenge a Denver District Court finding against the City and County of Denver. But if Miguel Lopez doesn’t prevail in this lawsuit, then Michael Ortiz has the permit and will proceed.”
This article by Michael Roberts continues…read the entire article at Westword. Denver 420 Rally: Attempt to Ban It Would Trigger a Lawsuit, Attorney Says, here. Denver 420 Rally Deserves to Die in Current Form, Critic Says, here. Denver Fines 420 Rally Organizer and Prohibits Park Permits for Three Years, here.
Alex Pasquariello at The Cannabist, also has something to say about the rally situation:
A Colorado cannabis entrepreneur is making a play for control of the Denver 4/20 rally after its controversial aftermath this past April. Pepe Breton, co-founder of dispensary chain Euflora, regrets that his company was a title sponsor of the 2017 rally, he said Wednesday. But Breton isn’t just dropping support for the annual rally at Civic Center Park celebrating marijuana — his company is launching a long-shot bid to wrest the permit for the event from longtime organizer Miguel Lopez. The future of the rally has been in question with Lopez facing a three-year ban from the city to host the event….
….The 2017 rally was “categorially mismanaged” and suffered from a severe lack of funding, Euflora marketing director Bobby Reginelli said at a hastily arranged news conference Wednesday afternoon outside the Webb building downtown.
“We have the time, talent and treasure to professionalize the 4/20 rally,” he said. “Our vision is to grow the rally into a celebration of (marijuana) legalization that people ages 21 to 100 years old can enjoy and relate to.” Read this entire article written by Alex Pasquariello at The Cannabist. Check out our sister site, Musicians 4 Freedom.
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