(Image: Uncle Ike’s)
A year after last May and June’s flurry of smash and grab burglaries targeting area pot shops, the E Olive Way Uncle Ike’s was reported held up at gunpoint Wednesday night.
According to East Precinct radio updates, a 911 caller reported a group of young males gathered nearby and preparing to rob the pot shop just before 10:30 PM. Minutes later, Uncle Ike’s reported at least two suspects in ski masks fleeing the store. Continue reading
The Seattle Office of Labor Standards says a Central District pot shop that has since been replaced by another business has agreed to pay $23,000 to former employees over violations of the city’s Wage Theft Ordinance.
The office announced the agreement with the ownership of the shuttered Ponder last week with no additional information about the alleged violations. The company and its owner agreed to pay $22,798.70 to 31 former employees, the office said in the announcement.
Violations can include problems with a company’s tracking of work hours and overtime, how tips are handled, and other wage disputes.
Forbidden Cannabis opened in the E Union location of Ponder in 2022 after Ponder owner John Branch put his business and the property up for sale. The building was coveted both for the value of its land and its cannabis license just down the street from the headquarters of one of the city’s leading pot retailers, Uncle Ike’s.
Ownership of Forbidden includes industry veteran Saranjit Bassi who took on the city of Bonney Lake over its retail cannabis ban.
Uncle Ike’s Ian Eisenberg (Image: CHS)
With Seattle’s cannabis shops preparing for this week’s 4/20 celebrations as the state marks its 10th year of legal marijuana, one of the city’s leading retailers will be the first to take part in Washington’s new Cannabis Social Equity Program designed to increase participation in the industry “by those most adversely impacted by the War on Drugs.”
State permitting shows that the original Uncle Ike’s at 23rd and Union will be the first cannabis business in Seattle to have its license fee refunded under the equity program.
According to a Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board spokesperson, Ike’s qualified for the program under a provision “that encourages all retail outlets to submit to the Board a ‘Social Equity Plan.'” Continue reading
KING 5 posted video from the crash scene
The latest in a string of crash and grab burglaries hitting Seattle cannabis shops targeted The Reef Dispensary overnight at E Olive Way and Denny.
According to East Precinct radio updates, a 911 caller reported a car had crashed through the front of the store just before 3 AM. Police said four men entered the store in full facemasks and grabbed items before fleeing westbound in an SUV, leaving the crashed car behind.
KING 5 posted video of the crash scene but was unable to confirm the car was part of a break-in. City Hall is marking Indigenous Peoples’ Day so many resources like public information officers are not available.
According to radio updates, the getaway was not clean with police reporting that one of the men in the heist fell on glass inside the store. Police also reported that someone had been able to fire pepper spray into the SUV before it sped off. Continue reading
(Image: Ponder)
As we head into Independence Day weekend 2022, the freedom to create, sustain, and cash in on your Seattle recreational pot shop is being marked on E Union.
Ponder, one of the neighborhood’s pioneer state-licensed cannabis shops, has been sold, sparking questions about the industry’s regulations and its place in Seattle’s tumultuous labor and workers rights movement.
John Branch, the owner who started the Central District shop seven years ago, said he could not provide details about any sale citing a confidentiality agreement. But he did comment on his years as a pioneer in Seattle’s regulated pot industry.
“I was one of the first people six years ago to start it. I was an original OG,” Branch said. “I just reached the arc.”
Continue reading
“Two months ago, I was staring down the barrel of a gun,” medical cannabis consultant Key Porter said. As she was trying to escape her shop, all she could think about was her son several blocks away.
Last week, Seattle cannabis equity community members spoke at the Seattle City Council Finance and Housing Committee meeting. Like Porter, they shared personal experiences working in the cannabis industry and brought up policies that contribute to cannabis equity.
In Seattle, Cannabis equity is about equity for frontline cannabis workers and BIPOC store owners. BIPOC communities are struggling to get a foothold in the cannabis industry, majority of which is dominated by white men. In 2020, Washington’s Department of Finance and Administrative Services said “42 of Seattle’s 48 cannabis retail stores had white majority ownership, of those 37 by white men.”
To help achieve equity in the cannabis industry, Washington’s Liquor and Cannabis Board established the Social Equity in Cannabis Task Force in 2020. To help BIPOC cannabis owners, the task force seeks to issue unused cannabis licenses to marginalized communities, harmed from the war on drugs.
But the path to ownership includes other, also important day to day issues faced by the industry workers brought together for the taskforce including come to face with a rash of armed robberies in the city. Continue reading
