Ketchum seeks young entrepreneurs
KETCHUM, Idaho – With a $28,000 grant from the city, a “business incubator” is being leased in Ketchum for budding entrepreneurs.
“Really, it’s a mindset to get companies that are looking for much more than just cheap office space,” explained Jon Duval, executive director of the Ketchum Community Development Corp.
“They don’t want to just work at home or in an office. They want to work around like-minded people to foster creativity and energy,” he told the Idaho Mountain Express.
He further explained that tenants of the incubator space are expected to have “a flexible business plan and a scalable business model. Also, we have a real desire to collaborate and help other entrepreneurs along with venture capital funding.”
Rich LeFaivre, former vice president of advanced technologies at Apple, also voiced support for the incubator. “Over the last 15 years as a venture incubator, I’ve seen the power of what happens if this is done right,” he said.
LeFaivre said he sees the incubator as an opportunity to attract more aspiring young business professionals to the area.
Another group, Sustain Blaine, has also worked on putting together a local investment strategy and mentor list.
Meanwhile, Spark Jackson Hole, a collaborative office space where individuals can rent desks or shared tables, has opened on the well-lit second-floor of a downtown building.
Megan Beck, a founder, said the idea is that people work best when they work together; Spark gives remote workers that opportunity.
As she’s vice president of development for Vittana, an educational nonprofit in Seattle, she’s one of those remote workers.
Beck told the Jackson Hole News&Guide that the office-sharing project is the result of growth in the knowledge worker economy in Jackson Hole, where brainpower, creative thinking and ingenuity are highly valued.
Many of her office mates have technology-based positions. For example, one is a software architect and another is the vice president of partnerships and operations for a technology firm.
Day passes at Spark are $35, while $190 buys space at a shared table for a month. An individual desk costs $275.
Boarders try legal route to Alta access
PARK CITY, Utah – A group called Wasatch Equality has filed a lawsuit that seeks to open Alta Ski Area to snowboarders. It is one of three resorts in the United States that restricts its slopes to skiers.
Deer Valley, located at Park City, and Mad River Glen, in Maine, are the other two.
The Park Record observes that the group is making a clever legal argument in the lawsuit filed in federal court. As Alta is the only one of the three to operate on federal land, the plaintiffs claim they are being denied equal protection and due process.
“Alta claims that it is attempting to maintain a ‘skiing culture,’ that its terrain is not conducive to snowboards, and that its business model caters to a skier-only market,” according to the lawsuit.
Drew Hicken, a founder of Wasatch Equality and one of the plaintiffs in the suit, said he doesn’t buy Alta’s reasoning.
“That is just ridiculous,” he told The Record. “They’re all talking about traversing. If you need to have a lower traversing line for snowboarders, so be it. Sometimes that’s how it is at Snowbird, and everyone gets along fine.”
Jonathan R. Schofield, an attorney representing Wasatch Equality, further said that the fact that a snowboarder can’t do a traverse doesn’t mean they can’t use other parts of the mountain. “There’s a lot of terrain on Alta that can be accessed just fine by snowboarders.”
The lawsuit states that it is brought “on behalf of all snowboarders who are currently prohibited by Alta,” but also “on behalf of all skiers who wish to ski with family and friends who snowboard.”
Big cannabis plans at town west of Vail
EAGLE – Something of a cannabis mall is being proposed in Eagle, the town 30 miles west of Vail.
There, Rocky Mountain Pure proposes to build a 6,000 square-foot retail store along with a 22,500-square-foot indoor cultivation facility and a 45,000-square-foot greenhouse, which would be for cannabis that would be exported to other buyers.
Also among the plans is a 3,675-square-foot “prohibition museum,” designed to extol the wonders of cannabis and also to air out aspects of the last 90 years when it has been essentially prohibited in the United States.
The Eagle Valley Enterprise explains that the local planning commission approved the uses, but left the hard question of size to the town board.
Pot edibles causing airport confusion
ASPEN – The complexities cascading from Colorado’s legalization of cannabis continue to unfold. Consider the airport for Aspen, where Transportation Security Administration agents found 36 ounces of cannabis-infused edibles in the luggage of a traveler.
The Aspen Daily News reports that the TSA gave the case to the Pitkin County Sheriffs’ Office, which did nothing because, under Colorado law, the individual had done nothing wrong.
While the feds seem unconcerned about relatively minor amounts, larger amounts are another matter. Where exactly that dividing line is, however, remains unclear.
Dave Joly, a spokesman for the FBI, cited a search executed by agents in Southern Colorado. Their warrant allowed them to enter a home to search a person’s computer hard drive, but while there, they discovered 15 plants and 8 pounds of dried marijuana. They then arrested the person on charges of intent to distribute.
“We can’t turn a blind eye to it,” Joly said. “We have to enforce federal law.”
In Aspen, sheriff’s deputies aren’t turning a blind eye, either. The edibles seized at the airport – a mixture of cookies, brownies and candies – were sealed in an evidence bag and will be incinerated.
But here’s another complication. The Colorado Constitution allows adults over the age of 21 to possess up to an ounce of marijuana. But the constitution is unclear as to how this ounce is to be calculated in the case of edibles.
For now, Pitkin County Sheriff Joe DiSalvo is attempting to place an amnesty box near the TSA security checkpoint that would allow travelers to dispense of their cannabis products with no questions asked. The drugs will be “burned, and not slowly,” he quipped.
Impact of THC on young minds debated
ASPEN – While Aspen had no reservations about allowing sales of recreational cannabis, Pitkin County Sheriff Joe DiSalvo is trying to foster a more thoughtful response to the implications.
The Aspen Daily News reports that DiSalvo on Monday convened what he hopes will be a series of a community roundtable discussion about the impacts of marijuana.
“The goal is the safe and responsible introduction of legal marijuana into our community,” he said. “We need to determine our community needs and figure out how to address them before they (problems) start.”
DiSalvo said that the greatest concerns of law-enforcement officers will be preventing drugged driving and ensuring that tourists don’t ingest more THC than they can handle.
Others have worries, among them John Maloy, superintendent of the Aspen School District. He said he was concerned about legalization leading to increased use among adolescents. He pointed to a growing body of research that shows that the developing brains of young people may be particularly susceptible to damage from marijuana’s psychoactive compound.
“We know that THC impairs intelligence, reasoning, judgment and clarity of thought,” said Maloy. “The community as a whole needs to send the message that there is a downside to marijuana use.”
– Allen Best