Colorado Springs has become the envy of the country, symbolizing good municipal governance and high-quality metropolitan lifestyles. Let’s not jeopardize this stature with pot shops lining Tejon Street and occupying strip malls.

By nearly every measure, Colorado Springs is a whopping success. It ain’t the least bit broken and should do nothing to jeopardize its friendly appeal to families, business leaders, entrepreneurs and military leaders.

Just last month, Travel Noire magazine published a survey that ranked the Springs fourth among “8 Cities Black Americans Should Consider for Career Growth.”

This week an Axios survey ranked our city among the top 10 most desirable destinations for recent college graduates to begin their careers after graduation.

The Pentagon knows Colorado Springs as a location military personnel frequently request for stationing.

Over the years, Colorado’s second-largest city has been ranked in surveys as the best large city in which to live.

Travel magazines consistently rank the Springs among the world’s best places to visit.

It routinely ranks among the top 10 in a variety of surveys that identify the best places to work, play, and bring up children.

Almost every day the public hears about another fashionable restaurant or retail chain racing to do business in the Springs.

Because downtown has become so popular, developers are planning nine new major apartment complexes to meet the demands of young people who want to live in the heart of our city. As the new buildings densify downtown’s population, the area will attract more great businesses offering goods and services.

Sadly, an activist group running a campaign called “Your Choice Colorado Springs” wants retail recreational pot stores all over town. They plan to gather petition signatures to legalize recreational marijuana sales and have received approval to do so.

Soon they will nag individuals to give away their signatures.

If it gets on a ballot and voters approve it, we will no longer be the most family-friendly big city in Colorado. Instead, we’ll be just another Colorado place with pot shops consuming spaces that could otherwise house health care, dining, retail, and all assortment of professional services.

If it gets on a ballot and passes, we will be just another place the healthiest families, investors, business leaders and entrepreneurs avoid in favor of locations that discourage recreational drug use. We’ll be just another place contributing to the soaring rates of car crashes involving marijuana.

We’ll be just another place that makes pot no less common than Slurpies among children.

To keep Colorado Springs on its enviable path, refuse to sign these petitions. Don’t let this bad idea make the ballot. Keep Colorado Springs the paragon of clean, healthy lifestyles and say “no” to anyone pushing for recreational retail pot.

Colorado Springs Gazette editorial board