DENVER – Colorado lawmakers will bring bills next session to deal with unregulated social marijuana clubs where pot is both sold and consumed outside of the state’s strict licensing regulations for recreational marijuana.

Rep. Jonathan Singer, D-Longmont, confirmed Thursday that he and Rep. Kit Roupe, R-Colorado Springs, are working on a bill to address the proliferation of pot clubs. He said many ideas are in the works.

“The first one is modeling something after what you saw with some of the dry towns, people paying an annual membership or a monthly membership to be part of a social club where they can safely consume cannabis,” Singer said.

In that scenario, Colorado Springs would be considered a “dry” town because the City Council has voted to not allow recreational marijuana sales in the city. Clubs that allow the consumption of marijuana and provide marijuana to its “members” have opened in the city, however.

“There’s a couple good examples of this and a couple bad examples of this in Colorado Springs,” Singer said. “Some of them are glorified drug fronts and some of them are legitimate organizations wanting to make sure that people can safely consume outside their own homes.”

Singer said a bill that’s in the works would likely allow consumption at clubs but ban sales. Singer said statewide guidelines are needed on such clubs, but local municipalities would have final say on the issue.

He said he’s also working to allow consumption on the premises of licensed recreational and medical retail stores. Singer said it’d be similar to alcohol tastings at a craft brewery or winery. He said consumption would have to comply with the Clean Indoor Air Act, so edibles or vaporizers probably would be used.

“Everyone agrees there is a problem,” Singer said of the conundrum of where to consume cannabis other than a private home. “Tourists come to Colorado, buy our marijuana, and we say ‘by the way don’t smoke it in the hotel, don’t smoke it on the street, don’t smoke it in bars … and make sure you consume it before you leave the state.”

The 2016 session begins Wednesday. Lawmakers have spent time drafting bills, but none have been officially introduced to receive bill numbers and titles.

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Contact Megan Schrader: 286-0644

Twitter @CapitolSchrader

Police seized more than 175 marijuana plants valued at $177,000 from a home in eastern El Paso County Wednesday (AP File Photo/Ed Andrieski)

Ed Andrieski