Pubdate: Sun, 31 Aug 2014
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2014 Associated Press
Contact:  http://www.utsandiego.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386
Note: Seldom prints LTEs from outside it's circulation area.
Author: Gene Johnson, Associated Press

WASHINGTON COURT UPHOLDS CITY'S BAN ON MARIJUANA SHOPS

Judge Says Small City Can Prohibit the State-Licensed Businesses 
Critics Say Local Bans Run Counter to Law Legalizing Pot

TACOMA, Wash. (AP) - A state judge said Friday that a small city can 
continue to ban state-licensed marijuana businesses, in a case with 
big implications for Washington's experiment in legal pot.

Pierce County Superior Court Judge Ronald Culpepper issued the ruling 
after extensive arguments over whether Initiative 502, the 
voter-approved state law that legalizes adults' recreational use of 
marijuana, left any room for such local bans.

The case concerned a ban in the Tacoma suburb of Fife. Would-be pot 
proprietor Tedd Wetherbee sued, saying he was entitled to do business 
but the city wasn't letting him. Culpepper disagreed.

"Fife's ordinance is not pre-empted by I-502 or other state law," he 
said in an oral ruling.

Wetherbee said he'd appeal.

Washington's experiment is built around the notion that it can bring 
marijuana out of the black market and into a regulated system that 
protects public health and safety better than prohibition did.

But advocates say local bans threaten the state's ability to do that: 
28 cities and two counties have banned pot shops, and scores more 
have issued long-running moratoriums preventing the stores from 
opening while officials review zoning and other issues.

Fife's lawyers argued that nothing in the state law overruled cities' 
zoning authority, while Wetherbee's attorneys insisted that if local 
governments can ban licensed growers, processors and sellers, it 
would undermine voters' desire to displace illegal pot sales.

Culpepper said Wetherbee did not prove that banning pot shops in such 
a small city - 5 square miles and fewer than 10,000 people - would 
thwart the will of the voters; there are shops open in nearby Tacoma.

The analysis might be different for bans in Pierce County or other 
more populous or larger parts of the state, Culpepper suggested.

The case posed a serious threat to Washington's entire system for 
regulating marijuana. Fife had asked the judge, if he struck down the 
city's ban, to consider whether the state law should be invalidated 
as incompatible with marijuana's prohibition under federal law.

Culpepper said offhandedly that he did not believe I-502 conflicts 
with federal law, but he did not reach that question in his ruling.

Nevertheless, Culpepper's ruling doesn't end the challenge to Fife's 
ban. The judge said Wetherbee could pursue procedural arguments that 
the city didn't adopt it properly.

The lawsuit attracted a lot of attention, with the state, the 
American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, and other counties and 
towns weighing in.

Alison Holcomb, the ACLU of Washington lawyer who wrote the law, said 
she hopes the Legislature will amend the law this winter to preclude local bans.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom