Congratulations, Chief Joe! Today, the City Council Safety & Well-Being Committee, chaired by Councilman Paul López, recognized Fire Prevention Division Chief Joseph Gonzales for his role in establishing Denver’s legalized marijuana enforcement program. When the amendment to legalize marijuana was placed on the ballot, Chief Gonzales forged a team of Fire Prevention officers and engineers to develop procedures and policies. This involved evaluating the Denver Fire Code to determine ability to enforce anticipated regulations within existing code, and reviewing other City codes, such as Building and Zoning, to structure policies and procedures to avoid conflicts. Chief Joe anticipated the challenges the Fire Department would face with the marijuana enforcement program. Because of the rapidly changing nature of the marijuana industry and its processes, he recognized that marijuana occupancies would require semiannual (rather than just annual) inspections. He provided justification to the Budget Office for new Fire Prevention staff specific to that program and those staff members are now in place. He engineered development of data management to identify Fire’s activities related to marijuana. Data management for Fire activities is not new, but software modifications and new procedures have been put into place to track activities involving marijuana across all Fire Department programs—fire safety inspections, fire safety permits, business license inspections, public education, plan review, etc. Chief Gonzales recognized the critical nature of hash oil extraction operations, which can be highly hazardous, and focused his staff’s attention on learning about these operations and providing training on extraction processes to Fire personnel as well as personnel from Excise and Licenses, Denver Police, Environmental Health, and Health and Hospitals. He served as advisor to the Building Department inspection staff for enforcement guidelines/procedures. Finally, he has worked closely with the City’s Office of Marijuana Policy to bring that office the benefits of what the Fire Department has learned from its experience with marijuana occupancies.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Sep 2014 22:14:12 +0000
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