Matt Driscoll: Pierce County’s recreational pot ban may be near end, maneuvering shows

Is our long recreational marijuana nightmare finally nearing an end?

Reading the pot leaves, it certainly seems like a distinct possibility.

Back in October, I wrote about Pierce County Councilman Derek Young’s effort to end the de facto ban on recreational pot stores in unincorporated Pierce County. Young’s bill — which was originally scheduled to be considered by the full council Oct. 28, but has now been pushed back until early December — would allow recreational marijuana stores to apply for and receive a conditional use permit.

That “receive” part is important. Currently county code forbids conditional use permits from being doled out to pot stores until marijuana is decriminalized by the federal government. Barring an unexpected Rick Steves presidency and the election of the String Cheese Incident to Congress, we’re probably a long way away from that happening.

But, here in Washington state, where recreational marijuana is legal for those 21 and older, we might be getting close to our local ban on storefronts coming to an end. At least that’s the optimistic takeaway from the developments of the last week or so.

And Lakewood Republican Doug Richardson remains the man in the middle.

While it’s Young who introduced the bill to end the ban, it’s Richardson who represents the swing vote on this issue. Republican County Council Chair Dan Roach, Joyce McDonald and Jim McCune are all dug in on pot, happy to continue the ban, Nancy-Reagan-Just-Say-No style. Meanwhile, the council’s Democrats — Young, Rick Talbert and Connie Ladenburg — would all like to see it end.

To his credit, Richardson’s stance on pot has been consistent. He’s staunchly against the proliferation of unlicensed medical pot shops — best estimates say there are now close to 80 throughout unincorporated Pierce County — and he’s unwilling to allow more pot for sale in Pierce County until this Wild West weed market gets reined in.

Luckily, state lawmakers in Olympia finally did their job this year, crafting legislation that will eventually do just that, putting the unregulated medical pot market on par with the licensed and regulated recreational market by July 1.

So last week, Richardson championed a budget amendment to create a fund to pay for marijuana enforcement — in other words, some of the money it will take to shut down the county’s unregulated medical stores.

But, as Kari Plog has reported, Richardson’s fund relies on future collection of state marijuana excise taxes, which Pierce County can’t collect unless … wait for it … we allow lawful recreational pot stores.

Not surprisingly, Young tells me the vote on his recreational pot bill was delayed in part so that Richardson’s budget amendment could be passed first.

Does Richardson’s move give a clear indication that he’ll vote in favor of lifting the de facto ban next month?

If so, he’s not saying. And he’ll surely get a lot of pressure from his Republican colleagues between then and now.

But as he’s told me in the past, ultimately his decision on the matter will come down to whether there’s a firm, “aggressive” enforcement plan in place to shut down unlicensed dispensaries.

The fund goes a long way toward accomplishing that.

And without an end to the ban, it just doesn’t make much sense.

There’s been a lot of speculation about how low voter turnout affected this year’s general election. Some of that speculation has even come from this column.

One interesting tidbit I couldn’t quite fit into Sunday’s column regards the role low turnout may have played in the vote on Tacoma’s roads package — Proposition A, the sales tax increase that voters have approved, and Proposition 3, the property and utility taxes that currently trails by a hard-to-believe four votes.

According to one of my go-to sources on such matters, Progressive Strategies NW consultant Nic Van Putten, if Proposition 3 ultimately meets its demise, turnout won’t be to blame.

In fact, low turnout could have helped it be this close.

“The worst area for both road measures was Northeast Tacoma, but it was particularly brutal for Prop. 3,” Van Putten says. “But it wasn't the only area to fail Prop. 3. The South End, South Tacoma, and East Side all rejected the measure. Meanwhile Central Tacoma as well as the North and West Ends passed the measure.”

Van Putten describes the outcome as “one of ideological, rather than purely economic considerations.”

“It appears that conservative voters preferred a sales tax increase while liberals preferred a property tax increase, even when controlling for income,” he said

“What would have happened if turnout were higher? You would have had more votes coming from the South End and East Side, and if they voted similarly to their neighbors, Prop. 3 would (be failing) by an even wider margin.”

This story was originally published November 16, 2015 at 1:24 AM with the headline "Matt Driscoll: Pierce County’s recreational pot ban may be near end, maneuvering shows."