Six more months of town's pot moratorium?

By Pat Jenkins

The Dispatch

Eatonville Town Council members may decide next Monday if the next six months should be as unfriendly in their community for retail marijuana businesses as it's been for every other month the past three and a half years.

The council is considering whether to extend Eatonville's moratorium on accepting or processing any applications for business licenses for recreational marijuana retailers. The proposal is to keep the lid on for at least another six months, lasting through the end of this year.

A public hearing on the issue is scheduled as part of a council meeting that will start at 7 p.m. at Eatonville Community Center.

Starting in December 2013, the council has first approved and then renewed a six-month moratorium at the midway and end of each year. Legalized marijuana businesses can't 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.

The town's 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.

The state law conflicts with federal law that still treats marijuana as a controlled substance.

Court rulings have favored municipalities such as Eatonville that want to opt out of the state law and deal with the issue of legalized pot sales on their own local terms. Pierce County Superior Court ruled in 2014 that the City of Fife has the authority to ban all marijuana businesses.

According to the Municipal Research and Services Council, an organization that advises local governments and reviews policies statewide, the court ruling doesn't mean marijuana can't be used by people who live in towns or cities that ban marijuana businesses. It just means they have to make their retail purchases of pot somewhere else.

Since the court ruling, one licensed pot retailer received permission to open a shop in Fifie as a result of an out-of-court settlement of his lawsuit against the city. Another shop in Fife is operated by the Puyallup Tribe on tribal land, making it exempt from the city's ordinance.

Except for tribal-owned operations, licensed marijuana businesses throughout Pierce County and the rest of Washington are governed by the state Liquor and Cannabis Control Board.

According to 502data.com, a marijuana industry website, sales of marijuana products by licensed retailers in Washington last year totaled nearly $700 million.