Burglary team pulls off overnight Capitol Hill pot shop heist by crashing car through front window — UPDATE

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

Coveted for its land and its license, Central District’s Ponder pot shop has sold — UPDATE

(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.”
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Seattle Cannabis Equity community members want ownership but also better conditions for frontline workers

“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