Klickitat County’s citizen Planning Commission is recommending to the County Board of Com-missioners that it enact a 2-year moratorium on the establishment of new marijuana-related businesses and the expansion of existing ones, in unincorporated Klickitat County.
Planning Commissioners voted 7-1 on June 15 to send the recommendation to the County Board. The vote followed a public hearing in Goldendale at which both opponents and proponents of Washing-ton’s voter-approved marijuana law, Initiative 502 (I-502), offered oral and written testimony on four regulatory options under consideration.
About 20 people attended the hearing. Sixteen individuals provided oral testimony; the county also received written comments from six individuals. Testimony ran largely in support of either Option 1, prohibition, or Option 3, interpret agriculture in the County Code to include marijuana growing and processing, and marijuana retail sales as ordinary retail business, and to allow such uses outright.
Consensus findings of fact adopted by the Planning Commission addressed the split testimony and reason why planners opted for a 2-year ban as opposed to a permanent prohibition, Planning Director Curt Dreyer told The Enterprise last Friday.
“Some, but not all, of the rationale included: the proven medicinal benefits of medical marijuana; study and research of marijuana is intensifying, and new benefits may be discovered with time; and tax laws and marijuana regulations are evolving,” said Dreyer.
He also pointed out that a 2-year ban will give the county additional time to learn from its and others’ mistakes, and the approaches taken in other states that have enacted medical and recreational marijuana laws.
The County Board entrusted the Planning Commission with a directive to come up with a recommendation for regulating I-502 businesses. The advisory decision will go to the County Board as soon as planners approve the legal documents in support of their decision. In the meantime, a 6-month moratorium the County Board enacted in April remains in effect for unincorporated Klickitat County.
If a 2-year prohibition is enacted by the County Board, the Planning Department will be charged with reporting to the Planning commission and County Board every 6 months “regarding operation of marijuana businesses and other related information so as to determine if revisions to the zoning regulations are warranted at an earlier date than the sunset date,” Dreyer said.
In Klickitat County, 18 state-licensed marijuana businesses have become vested under county land use regulations. Dreyer said these I-502 — from growers to processors to retail salesmen — are allowed to operate as ‘grandfathered, non-conforming uses,’” Dreyer noted.
Moreover, he said, personal use, as provided for under I-502 and state Liquor and Cannabis Control Board regulations, will not be affected by the county’s moratorium.
Skamania County also has a moratorium on marijuana businesses in place covering its unincorporated areas. A retail store recently open in North Bonneville in partnership with that city.
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