By Pat Jenkins
The Dispatch
Voters in Eatonville will have something extra to think about in this fall's general election: Should the town allow retail marijuana businesses?
The Town Council, backing away from making the decision on its own, has decided to put that question to voters in the form of an advisory ballot measure. It will be a non-binding measure, meaning the results of voting in November will serve mainly as an opinion poll for the council to consider when it goes back to weighing the issue.
The council members could have banned any businesses involved in growing, processing and selling pot under the state’s recreational marijuana law at their Jan. 22 meeting. An ordinance to that effect was ready for adoption after being formally introduced earlier in the month.
But the council instead voted unanimously to put the measure on hold and also reinstated a moratorium on legalized marijuana sales and business licenses (if any are requested) relating to marijuana until after the advisory vote in November.
The moratorium is the same one that was in effect for three years before the council lifted it last June. That action led to a proposal from the town administration for Interim regulations governing where and how marijuana processing and retail sales could be allowed in Eatonville. The interim rules were rejected by the council in December, setting up the debate over a possible outright ban that now is hinging partly on the outcome of the advisory ballot measure, which was approved by council members James Schrimpsher, Robert Thomas and Jennie Hannah. Councilmen Bill Dunn and Bob Walter voted against it.
Nothing has actually been blocked by the council’s anti-marijuana position. No prospective pot entrepreneurs have requested a business permit from Eatonville. And the state Liquor and Cannabis Bard, which regulates the pot industry, isn’t accepting new applications for marijuana retailers, growers or processors.
The interim regulations the council turned down December were identical to ones that were approved by the council in 2013 in advance of a statewide ballot measure on whether to legalize recreational marijuana. After voters passed that measure in 2014, the council, citing uncertainty about impacts of legalization and concern for the public's welfare, opted for a moratorium and renewed it every six months until mid-2017. The lifting of the moratorium last year resurrected the interim land-use regulations, which Mayor Mike Schaub said would cover the possibility of someone applying to the town for a permit to run a marijuana enterprise.
Towns, cities and counties that ban legalized marijuana businesses don’t get a share of state-collected taxes on pot sales.
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