A year with recreational pot

by ALANA LINDEROTH

and MATTHEW NASH

Sequim Gazette

With the onset of 2015, City of Sequim and county officials move into their second year with legalized recreational marijuana and continue to face the challenges associated with locally implementing Initiative 502.

Although passed in 2012, Washington State Liquor Control Board officials didn’t begin issuing licenses until the beginning of last year and the implications of I-502 began to run its course across Washington – marking a milestone for the state, but also for cities and counties within the state.

Marijuana in the city

Recreational marijuana sales went on lockdown fairly quickly in the City of Sequim in 2014.

City councilors voted in place a moratorium to prohibit recreational sales and processing and production of marijuana. But city staff created an ordinance that would allow some recreational sales from a state-approved seller in certain parts of town. However, the moratorium was extended twice by city councilors for six month stints through Feb. 9 of this year.

City councilors will review the possibility of another six-month moratorium then, city staff said, but it depends on a few scenarios.

City Manager Steve Burkett said they want to “see some kind of resolution by the Legislature” between medical marijuana and recreational marijuana.

“We want the two to be integrated or combined so people would have access to both recreational and medical marijuana at same locations and be regulated in the same way,” he said.

“Right now, medical marijuana is essentially illegal because of the way it was adopted by the Legislature. There’s an unregulated medical marijuana process, not in our city, that’s undermining recreational marijuana’s viability.”

City Attorney Craig Ritchie said he anticipates there will be some proposed bills early in the legislative session to resolve the issues for marijuana sales but any tentative resolution isn’t likely to come until the end of the session.

Some of the tentative proposals, Ritchie said, would allow an endorsement to sell medical marijuana in state-sanctioned recreational marijuana facilities, tax changes on medical marijuana dispensaries and allow for more revenue to cities like Sequim from marijuana sales.

But until the Legislature acts, Burkett said, city staff’s recommendation will be to extend the moratorium.

The person left most in the lurch with the city’s moratorium is David Hal-pern of Gardiner who was selected as the city’s lone recreational retailer in May following a state double-blind lottery. He continues to pay rent on his Emanon Systems, Inc., at 755 W. Washington St., Suite C, and previously said he’d wait through August 2015 depending on his lease agreement with his landlord.

Despite not being able to sell yet, a few concerned citizens brought Halpern’s criminal background to the public’s eye again.

In 1993, Halpern was convicted for smuggling 15 tons of supplements called “Fountain of Youth” drugs from Europe for illegal distribution. Also, Halpern, a registered sex offender in Jefferson County, was sentenced to 180 days in Santa Cruz County for a 1994 felony charge for a lewd act with a 14-year-old girl.

Despite Halpern’s criminal record, state officials with the Liquor Control Board indicated Halpern still would receive his recreational marijuana license. The Liquor Control Board uses a point system to judge applicants on their criminal history.

For example, a felony conviction like Halpern’s does not qualify since it was more than 10 years ago. However, any other felony conviction up to 10 years ago would receive 12 points. Those with eight points or more would not receive a license to sell, officials said.

“While the law is silent on the issue of local bans, there is also nothing within the law which allows for the board to deny licenses to qualified applicants,” said Mikhail Carpenter, with the Washington State Liquor Control Board communications department. “We have been upfront about this from the beginning; if an applicant meets the state’s criteria for licensure, the board will issue a state license.”

Ritchie said the city wouldn’t have any authority to deny Halpern a business license either based on his criminal history.

When asked if the moratorium and Halpern’s record were correlated, Burkett said they were not.

Until Sequim’s moratorium is lifted, the closest available recreational retail marijuana store within Clallam County is the Hidden Bush just east of Port Angeles or in Jefferson County at the mouth of Discovery Bay at Sea Change Cannabis.

In Clallam County

While Sequim councilors have kept I-502 activity from infiltrating city limits via a moratorium, county officials have allowed for retail stores and processing and production facilities within its borders.

Following Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s opinion announced last January allowing local governments the “broad authority to regulate (I-502) within their jurisdictions,” county officials firmed two decisions in an April memo from previous DCD Director Sheila Roark Miller. The memo concluded DCD staff will not interpret agriculture to include marijuana and marijuana is considered a “unclassified” use.

Thus, with the exception of those interested in properties zoned industrial, limited industrial or business park, all I-502 processors and/or producers became subject to the county’s conditional use permit process.

Clallam County Department of Community Development officials have processed 19 applications for zoning conditional use permits for I-502 production and/or processing facilities. Of the permits processed, 13 were approved, three denied and two withdrawn (one permit was withdrawn and the applicant reapplied for approval).

Though some permits were issued without public opposition, others involved entire neighborhoods banning together against I-502 activity in residential zones.

During multiple public hearings, opposing residents voiced concerns and speculations on the I-502 industry’s presence within residential zones and its impact to property values, public safety, environmental and neighborhood characteristics.

“My biggest concern is safety,” a potential neighbor to a recently proposed Carlsborg I-502 facility, April Lauritzen told Gazette staff in December. “I know what a sought-after product it is.”

Applicant Keith Lallone’s zoning conditional use permit for a tier 1 marijuana processing and production facility on Linderman Road in Carlsborg was the most recent permit to be heard by Lauren Erickson, the county’s pro tem hearing examiner, and it was denied Dec. 31.

Because the county’s previous hearing examiner Mark Nichols won the November election for prosecuting attorney, the county had to hire a temporary hearing examiner. Although county staff haven’t received all the invoices yet, Steve Gray, DCD deputy director and planning manager, said the estimated costs related to the eight I-502 conditional use permit cases heard by the pro tem examiner is estimated to cost more than $10,000.

Throughout 2014 county commissioners Mike Doherty, Jim McEntire and Mike Chapman remained split on the best way to control I-502 activity, but following a number of public hearings and spurred by community pushback, the county’s planning commission teamed with DCD staff to compile a temporary ordinance with a lifespan of six months. The ordinance is designed to provide temporary guidance as to where I-502 processing and/or productions facilities can be located.

Planning commission member Tom Montgomery told Gazette staff following the adoption of the temporary zoning controls in October that “the commission is prepared to focus on a permanent ordinance and should have a product well before the interim ordinance expires in six months.”

Ordinance 896 will expire April 7, but may be extended if desired.

Marijuana citations by the numbers from past 5 years:

• City of Sequim: 22 total cases

2010 – 4

2011 – 4

2012 – 8

2013 – 5

2014 – 1

• Clallam County: 14 total cases

2010 – 2

2011 – 4

2012 – 3