I found the state’s compliance checks on marijuana businesses interesting.
The stores — two in Everett and two in Tacoma — could be hit with a $2,500 fine and a suspension. The person who did the actual selling could be charged by a local prosecutor.
The four stores were among 22 tested in checks between May 15 and 18. Brian Smith, a spokesman for the state Liquor Control Board which licenses recreational marijuana stores, said that compliance rate of 82 percent is lower than the 85 percent rate for all retail stores that sell some alcohol product and the 92 percent rate for stores that sell spirits.
I hope they get those numbers up, because obviously they shouldn’t sell marijuana to children. If it takes suspending some licenses, that’s fine. We’ve had more time to weed out* people selling alcohol (I don’t know how much it changed with privatization and deregulation a few years ago, but it at least had a bit of a head start).
It’s also pretty small numbers so one less bust would be better than 86%. Not that any selling to minors is OK, but we’ll probably want more numbers in the future.
Also, I’m guessing that’s a much better number than street dealers. So while legalization has had some hiccups, it’s a lot better than the old way people got their marijuana in the state.
* Not intentional, but I’m keeping it. It would be the sort of thing I’d make fun of if it was someone else, so I thought I should at least mention it here.
It’s entrapment.
Marijuana is still illegal under federal law, and while the current administration has announced a policy of forbearance in states that have “legalized” medical and/or recreational marijuana at the state level, that’s purely discretionary and could change on a dime without any legislation by Congress.
Even if the Feds choose not to prosecute sellers of “legal” pot, federal illegality has other very real consequences. For example, because marijuana is illegal in all states, the IRS code will not allow pot growers and sellers to deduct their business expenses. Thus, if you sell $1 million of “legal” pot, which cost you $700,000 to grow or purchase from a grower, your taxable income is $1 million, not $300,000. In other words, you owe federal income taxes on your gross revenue, and that alone is likely to wipe out most or all of your profit.
So, even before you get involved with state compliance issues (and potentially hefty fines for compliance errors), there are major disincentives against being in the “legal” pot business — not least that you have to compete against much cheaper “street” pot sold by street dealers who don’t have to incur compliance costs or pay taxes.
In this environment, it’s somewhat surprising to me that there are any “legal” pot shops at all.
I’m a little interested in how this worked. I’ve been to four shops and every out-of-state visitor I get wants to go to one. There’s one about a ten minute bike ride from my house. In all of these stores there is a person at the door checking ID before you are allowed entry.
So either these particular four shops aren’t following best practices and they deserve to be shut down for being stupid or WSLCB sent minors in with reasonable fake IDs. Then they send out a press release about how the employees could face jail time. Uh, probably not. Find me a judge or jury in Washington that will equate “failure to spot a good fake ID” with a felony. Prosecuters may waste some time and taxes trying but a conviction is going to be very difficult.
@3 You’ve been to 4 well behaved shops, then. The Liquor Control board has been doing enforcement actions like this on restaurants, bars, and retail stores for as long as I have been alive.
Everyone working in the service industry knows someone who’s been hit by WSLCB and lost their job for it. A guy I went to high school with ended up losing his career as a Safeway manager that way. The undercover customer he didn’t card was one of our former underclassmen, who pulled the “dude, c’mon, it’s me” line when initially refused. Everybody who has to sell alcohol knows a story like that.
So yeah, MOST people are pretty anal about carding. But a few can be cajoled into letting it slide. And those people are who the LCB targets, with pushy, insistent undercover buyers.