Edmonds puts moratorium on medical-marijuana dispensaries

An uncontrolled boom in underground medical-marijuana dispensaries over the past year has vexed cities around the state, leaving them unsure whether to look the other way on questionable pot sales or to crack down on clinics helping sick patients.

The Edmonds City Council stepped into the middle of the debate Tuesday night, passing a six-month moratorium on dispensaries even as it urged the Legislature to clarify terms of the state's muddled medical-marijuana law.

The issue arose when a 25-year-old Everett man asked the city earlier this month for a business license to open a dispensary. While the city considered the request, police noticed that a second dispensary had been operating without a business license since October.

At a Tuesday night hearing, City Council member Adrienne Fraley-Monillas said her doctor recently authorized her to take medical marijuana because she has cancer. But, like other council members, she chafed at the shady operating practices of some dispensaries.

"Although I may need it one day, I cannot support it right now because the dispensary in our area can't even get a business license," she said, joining the 6-to-1 majority passing the moratorium.

The state medical-marijuana law, passed by voters in 1998, does not authorize dispensaries, but it does allow qualified patients to get medicine from a caregiver who can treat one patient.

Dispensaries have loosely interpreted the law as allowing them to act as a caregiver to hundreds of patients, one at a time. It is unclear how many dispensaries have opened, but advocates estimate that dozens have opened this year alone, most in Seattle, which has taken a laissez-faire approach. King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg has also signaled reluctance to target dispensaries.

Other areas opt for full enforcement. A dispensary was raided last week in Snohomish County, and a dispensary owner is facing prosecution in Pierce County.

Both Redmond and Kent recently denied new business licenses to proposed dispensaries, although Kent is not interfering with several existing ones, pending the outcome of a bill in the Legislature.

That bill, SB 5073, introduced by Sen. Jeannie Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, would legalize and regulate medical-marijuana growers and dispensaries and, for the first time, provide patients with arrest protection.

Edmonds Police Chief Al Compaans said it's well past time. "The law is as clear as mud," he said. "It's placed law enforcement and cities and counties in an untenable position, not to mention the patients."

At Tuesday's hearing, after the city attorney gave a briefing that barely mentioned patients, Dawn Darington reminded the council that the law is difficult for them, too.

"It doesn't provide for the patients, and it doesn't provide for people who provide," said Darington, of Seattle's The Hemp Cloud University, which provides medical-marijuana authorizations for patients.

Gurkaran Grewal, a 25-year-old pharmacy technician from Everett, unwittingly prompted the Edmonds moratorium by requesting a business license for his proposed dispensary, Green Star Collective. Unlike other dispensaries, he also incorporated his business with the state.

"We want to follow the law, legitimate, and not hide anything," he said before the vote.

After his request was filed, the city found and quickly visited Sativa Medical Group, a dispensary in the city's Firdale shopping center. That business has a state license, issued to Kenneth M. Allison, but has not applied for a city license. Allison did not return a call Tuesday.

Edmonds code-enforcement officers found several violations, not the least of which is a lack of a city business license. Edmonds Fire Marshall John Westfall said Tuesday that his staff would return to Sativa shortly.

Jonathan Martin: 206-464-2605 or jmartin@seattletimes.com