Top 10 Stories of 2014, No. 4: Pot farms entangled in regulatory ‘No-man’s land’
Published 10:42 am Monday, December 29, 2014
No other county in Washington state embraced Initiative 502, which legalized recreational use of marijuana by adults, by a greater margin than did the voters of San Juan County just two years ago, at 68 percent. That was then.
Flash forward 24 months, and the cultivation of marijuana had mushroomed into one of the more divisive “N.I.M.B.Y.” issues (Not In My Backyard) seen in the San Juans’ for quite some time.
Not that there’s a whole lot of it going on.
A total of three local pot-producing facilities have been licensed by the Liquor Control Board, the state agency tasked with implementation of I-502, and roughly four acres are under cultivation as of today. One retail pot shop, Orcas Island’s Token Herb, is licensed and open for business.
But absence of an “industry” didn’t dissuade the County Council, prompted by complaints of pot-farm neighbors, from determining local rules on agricultural activities and greenhouse may be inadequate to guard against impacts of large-scale marijuana grow operations and that a 6-month moratorium on issuing land-use or building permits for such an enterprise might be warranted. Council-sponsored workshops on the topic are slated for Jan. 12 and Jan. 26.
Critics contend a moratorium is a heavy handed tool driven by complaints of the few that could discourage money-making agricultural endeavors and jeopardize investments of those already in operation. Proponents insist local rules are insufficient and a moratorium provides time and the kind of urgency the county needs to create adequate regulations. Contrasting views were aired at a town hall hosted by Grange 966 in late November, which drew a standing-room-only crowd.
Then, in early December, the county hearing examiner tossed another wrench into the pot-cultivation machinery by revoking a building permit of a west side San Juan Island grow operation and ruling that county planners failed to adequately weigh its impacts, such as noise and odor, and sent its land-use application back for a more thorough review.
