By Pat Jenkins The Dispatch A moratorium against licensed marijuana businesses in Eatonville will continue another six months. The Town Council voted May 23 to extend the ban on accepting or processing applications for business licenses for recreational marijuana producers and retailers. The latest extension takes effect later this month. When it's due to either be renewed again or dropped at the end of 2016, the moratorium will have been in place since December 2013. No legalized marijuana businesses can be started in the town during the moratorium. No such businesses have been proposed in Eatonville since state-licensed recreational marijuana sales became legal following the statewide approval by voters in 2014 of Initiative 502. But the council chose to guard against them pending the outcome of legal tests of I-502 and the process of setting regulations for licensed pot sales. Town officials also are concerned about the financial impact on law enforcement. Eatonville is among cities and towns that want the state to share tax revenue from marijuana businesses in order to help pay for policing. The Eatonville Planning Commission recommended land-use zoning that would give state-licensed retail vendors a place to do business in Eatonville under tight restrictions. The moratorium trumps that recommendation.
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