Unlicensed Seattle pot shops have been warned: Close your doors, or else
SEATTLE With a deadline looming for the merging of Washingtons recreational and medical marijuana markets, cities around the state are warning unlicensed pot dispensaries to close up shop.
July 1 marks the date when, after nearly two decades of confusion about the status of medical marijuana, the industry becomes regulated for the first time. Hundreds of pot shop workers are being certified as medical marijuana consultants, the Department of Health is preparing a voluntary registry of patients, and the Liquor and Cannabis Board has been granting endorsements enabling recreational marijuana stores to sell for medical use.
As part of the transition, required under the Cannabis Patient Protection Act passed by the Legislature last year, unlicensed dispensaries that proliferated in the past decade need to shut down, as do the large-scale growing cooperatives that supplied them, to eliminate competition with Washingtons pioneering legal marijuana law, Initiative 502, approved by voters in 2012.
Its unclear how many unlicensed dispensaries remain open statewide. In Thurston County, Sheriff John Snaza and a county prosecutor are visiting each dispensary to personally inform them of the expectation that they close by July 1 unless they have a state license.
We had more than 100 stores in the city last year, said Seattle deputy city attorney John Schochet. We sent letters to the ones that didnt appear to have any eligibility for Initiative 502 licenses, to tell them to close. Most of them have at this point, but we have a few that remain open. Were going to be communicating with them and letting them know that June 30 is going to have to be their last day in existence.
During a conference call with reporters Wednesday, Liquor and Cannabis Board officials said their goal is to have the unlicensed businesses close voluntarily, but their enforcement staff is prepared to help local police and prosecutors take additional steps if necessary. The shops could see civil or criminal enforcement, ranging from city-level sanctions or the seizure of inventory to drug distribution charges.
We actually have rules in place that allow for seizure and destruction of product that is not identified within our traceability system, said the boards enforcement chief, Justin Nordhorn. The intent of that particular rule is not to clog up criminal courts and not to necessarily take criminal action against everybody thats continuing to run a dispensary, but to dry up the supply for those particular stores.
Washington in 1998 became one of the first states to approve the use of marijuana as medicine, but the initiative passed by voters did not allow commercial sales. Instead, patients had to grow the marijuana for themselves or designate someone to grow it for them. The measure did not prohibit patients from pooling their resources together to have large ...
