Four towns just said no to marijuana sales, but how strong is rural Colorado’s distaste for weed?

Charlie Williams doesn’t believe there should be stores selling pot in his tiny town deep in the San Luis Valley.

The 67-year-old pastor isn’t alone. Two dozen of his fellow residents joined him last month in successfully turning down — 25 to 18 — a measure that would have allowed recreational and medical cannabis sales in this town of fewer than 100 just west of Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve.

“It’s a lot of conservative-minded people who really don’t want that in their town,” said Williams, who preaches at the non-denominational Church of the Living God in Hooper. “Some of us in Hooper wanted to draw a line and keep that out of here.”

Hooper was one of four rural Colorado towns — stretching across 430 miles from the Kansas border to the New Mexico line — to reject cannabis sales at the ballot box April 5. The other three were Burlington, Ignacio and La Veta.

Last month’s municipal election results appear to affirm the notion that rural Colorado is decidedly less friendly to the marijuana industry than the more populated parts of the state — a dynamic that generally aligns with the political and cultural divisions that have deepened in the state in recent decades. [Read more at The Denver Post]