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5 <br /> <br />Colorado State Bd. of Pharmacy v. Priem, 272 P.3d 1136 (2012). As conceded by Cotter, Priem <br />establishes that in Colorado, the applicant for a license bears the burden of proof. Here, the <br />situation bears the same analysis – Cotter is required by the MLRA and Rules to apply for <br />permission to keep its permit. Cotter’s cases attempting to shift the burden to Objectors are <br />simply not applicable. Each of those cases dealt with a situation where, but-for the action of the <br />party seeking to revoke a permit, there would have been no hearing and no chance that the permit <br />would be terminated. Here, the opposite is true – but-for Cotter’s application attempting to <br />retain its permits via temporary cessation, those permits would terminate by operation of the <br />MLRA and Rules. Cotter is affirmatively seeking to avoid termination, is required to seek a <br />Board hearing to make its case that can meet the required demonstrations – and Cotter has the <br />burden of proof. <br /> Lastly, any finding that Cotter bears no burden in this proceeding would be nonsensical. <br />The precedent that would be established by such a finding would be to effectively require the <br />Board to grant the second term of temporary cessation to any and all requesters regardless of the <br />strength or adequacy of the requester’s demonstrations. This would be contrary to the Act and <br />Rules, which squarely place an obligation on the operator to demonstrate entitlement and on the <br />Board to weight the evidence and determine whether the operator has satisfied the statutory and <br />regulatory requirements. Granting the request without requiring Cotter to meet its burden would <br />be an abuse of discretion. <br /> Read fairly, the MLRA places the discretion of whether to grant Cotter’s request in the <br />Board, and with or without an objection, a hearing is required in which Cotter bears the burden <br />to demonstrate: 1) the MLRA’s ten year non-production limitation on the Board’s power and <br />discretion has not been exceeded; and, 2) Cotter has provided proof that the standards in the