Ferndale council may put moratorium on new retail marijuana stores

The City Council will consider an emergency moratorium on new marijuana stores on Monday, Dec. 7.

Officials said they wanted time to reconcile their rules with changes in state regulations, which include rolling unregulated medical marijuana operations into the highly regulated recreational pot market.

They also wanted to clarify the city’s rules to would-be retailers in light of the changes at the state level.

Ferndale has one pot store, Buds SOS on Portal Way.

“I think this is a good middle ground of saying OK, we’re going to put a hold on what we have,” said Greg Young, city administrator, on Wednesday, Dec. 2, during the council Planning and Land Use Committee’s discussion on the matter.

The committee voted to send the moratorium, which would go into effect immediately if approved and last for six months unless it’s renewed, to the full council for its consideration on Monday. A public hearing would then be held within 60 days.

A moratorium wouldn’t affect the existing operations of Buds SOS, officials said, nor would it affect licensed pot growers and processors.

Jori Burnett, the city’s community development director, said Ferndale’s existing rules were aligned with Initiative 502, which focused on selling marijuana for recreational use in Washington state.

“Nothing more, nothing less,” Burnett said.

The city’s current codes, for example, bar recreational and medical marijuana from being sold in the same store.

And it’s silent on the number of pot stores allowed in the city, because the original state rules allotted just one store for Ferndale.

But as it moved to fold medical into recreational sales, the state lifted the cap on the number of stores allowed — at least it did when it reopened the licensing process in October. So it’s unclear how many more pot stores Ferndale could get, or if it will even get one more. The state Liquor and Cannabis Board is waiting on a consultants’ report before deciding on the number, according to KUOW.

Buds SOS was among the seven pot retailers in Whatcom County that have so far received the OK from the state to sell medical marijuana, starting July 1.

Burnett said Ferndale’s moratorium shouldn’t interfere with Buds’ ability to sell medical marijuana in July.

In addition to the number of stores and the combination of medical and recreational pot, the other issue at the local level is the former 1,000-foot buffer zone around certain areas where children might gather.

New state legislation allows local governments to reduce the buffer down to as little as 100 feet except around schools and playgrounds, which retain the original buffer.

But there doesn’t seem to be a need to do this because there’s still space for additional pot stores under Ferndale’s current zoning, a city staff report said.

The rule changes could go before the City Council in January, when there will be three, possibly four, new members. The council has seven members.

Ferndale isn’t alone in considering a new moratorium because of the state’s recent changes, although no others are in Whatcom County. A small number of local governments in the state have, in part because of the state’s decision to lift the cap on the number of stores.

“Definitely, that created some uncertainty amongst some jurisdictions,” said Candice Bock, government relations advocate with the Association of Washington Cities.

The cities of Ellensburg and Millwood, both of which have pot stores, also put temporary moratoriums into place.

Ellensburg was originally allowed to have two recreational pot stores and that’s what it has, said John Akers, city manager.

“The change in philosophy with the Liquor Control and Cannabis Board was a little bit of a surprise for us,” Akers said, adding that the city wasn’t trying to keep the industry out.

“It’s simply that the way the state crafted it, it would open the door to have multiple retail establishments right next door to each other,” he said. “We felt like we needed to have a little bit of time to understand what the state was doing and to develop our response to it.”

He expected to city to tweak its code so a bunch of stores aren’t grouped together in a block, according to Akers.

“It’s not a measure to avoid having additional stores,” Akers said. “It’s just getting our act together before we do.”

This story was originally published December 5, 2015 at 10:10 AM with the headline "Ferndale council may put moratorium on new retail marijuana stores."