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Lucky 21 — Retail pot lottery planned for April

(Image: @acholcomb via Twitter)

(Image: @acholcomb via Twitter)

With Washington’s first license for a marijuana producer-processor issued Wednesday to Spokane’s Kouchlock Productions, the process to assign licenses for the more than 300 planned legal pot shops in the state — including 21 in Seattle — is also moving forward.

A spokesperson for the Washington State Liquor Control Board — soon to become the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board, btw — tells CHS a proposal for the retail license lottery was slated to be presented Wednesday.

A control board member speaking at an event in Pullman late last month said the lottery will take place in April:

 In April, they plan to hold a retail license lottery for all the applicants that want to open up a pot shop. The board plans on issuing more than 300 licenses to retailers, but they’ve already received more then 2,000 applications.

The official also said stores could be open as soon as June.

Screen Shot 2014-03-05 at 10.52.39 AMThe race to become Seattle’s first legal marijuana retailers has drawn some interesting players sometimes employing interesting strategies. The most serious apparently have played multiple hands with applications for more than one location in the city as various rules and zoning interplay to create marijuana-free zones across Seattle. In one sad wrinkle, retailers won’t be allowed to hold the other cannabis licenses for producers or processors so don’t get your hopes up, yet, for a Seattle pot bakery shop.

Earlier, CHS reported on the state’s decision to allocate only 21 stores for the city and its strict “as the crow flies” interpretation of the 1,000-foot buffer that would virtually eliminate any possibility of a pot store opening on Capitol Hill. City Attorney Pete Holmes continues to call for more shops to legally address the Seattle cannabis demand.

We last mapped the more than 400 cannabis retail applications submitted for Seattle in January as a few prospective pot entrepreneurs rolled the dice on acquiring licenses for shops on Capitol Hill. The control board has reportedly, um, weeded out locations that would violate laws and zoning rules as well as assessed the lease situation for proposed stores. Selecting from the remaining pool will apparently come down to the luck of the draw.

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M.C.Barrett
M.C.Barrett
10 years ago

…pottery?

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[…] Washington State Liquor — and Marijuana — Control Board has released the results of a lottery process that ranks candidates to be part of Seattle’s first wave of 21 legal cannabis retailers this […]