Coloradans will unwrap one big gift on Thursday, July 20, when the Levitt Pavilion starts its inaugural season in Ruby Hill Park, with nearly thirty free concerts and shows and room for 7,500 people, along with spaces for food trucks. Tim Cullen, CEO of the Colorado Harvest Company dispensary chain, is especially excited to attend the first show — partly because it’s one he helped create.
Colorado Harvest Company contributed $100,000 to the Levitt Pavilion’s capital campaign, making it the venue’s biggest benefactor. “That wasn’t anticipated,” Cullen says, although he definitely anticipated getting a great venture off the ground. “First, it was a great idea that can change the music scene and its public availability for generations to come. Second, they’re uniquely situated as a nonprofit. We’re uniquely situated, in that we can advertise with a nonprofit and not much else.”
The State of Colorado allows dispensaries and other cannabis businesses to advertise with publications, radio stations and television stations only if reliable evidence shows that over 30 percent of the audience is over 21; marijuana billboards are largely banned. (A handful of Colorado dispensaries have joined the Colorado Department of Transportation’s Adopt-A-Highway program, which gives them secure signage in high-traffic areas in exchange for paying for workers to clean up stretches of road.)
Most outdoor cannabis advertising of any type is prohibited in Denver. Levitt Pavilions, which are located throughout the country, are owned by the cities that house them, but each Levitt Pavilion remains a nonprofit venue – and that allows cannabis companies to announce themselves, Cullen explains.
Cullen, a member of the Levitt Pavilion Denver board of directors, isn’t the only representative of the cannabis industry; Jeremy Heidl, chief operating officer of O.penVape, is also on the board, and O.penVape is a “presenting sponsor,” according to the Denver Business Journal. (Heidl did not respond to a request for comment.)
“We saw this as an opportunity to connect with the community in something more long-term than a highway sign,” Cullen says. “Community involvement has always been something that is part of who I am. I always knew we were going to help do something like [the Levitt], but I wasn’t sure what it’d be.”
> > > > > > > > > >
Read the whole article here:
http://www.westword.com/marijuana/colorados-pot-industry-helped-bring-levitt-pavilion-to-denver-9271589
By Thomas Mitchell
[Thank you to Alex Teitz, http://www.femmusic.com, for contributing this article.]