Curbside pot pickup? Washington relaxes rules during coronavirus pandemic
The coronavirus has a lot of people panic-buying just about everything in fear of a quarantine, and in Washington, that includes pot.
The Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board announced changes to marijuana regulations on Tuesday, Brian Smith, spokesman for the LCB, told McClatchy. Changes included curbside pickup for green card holders, limits on the number of people inside a store at once, and stricter sanitary standards to curb the spread of the coronavirus and protect medical users, according to Smith.
While the LCB has already reminded some vendors to practice social distancing by limiting their capacity to 50 people, other stores are taking the new regulations very seriously. Cinder in downtown Spokane is strictly enforcing the capacity limit and sanitizing all surfaces every half-hour to an hour, Mindy Orlowski, a supervisor at Cinder, told McClatchy.
Staff members at Cinder are required to handle all the products, meaning customers cannot touch the product while examining it before purchasing it, Orlowski said. Cinder has seen a considerable uptick in the quantity of product people are buying, leading to higher profits.
That trend is consistent statewide – Washington’s cannabis industry is doing very well, Smith said. Kc Franks, an owner of three Lux Pot Shop retail stores in Seattle, told Marijuana Business Daily his stores saw a few more customers, and the average sale per person increased by about $5.
As the CDC encourages social-distancing practices, people are also moving online to order products so they can get in and get out of the store as quickly as possible, Orlowski said. Seattle pot retailers are also working to encourage customers to use online sales more often, Aaron Varney, director of Dockside Cannabis, told Marijuana Business Daily.
While business is booming now, Orlowski expressed concern about a potential shutdown, although there are no reports of a plan to do so, according to the LCB. Her store works closely with local grow operations, who, she says, would suffer greatly should a shutdown occur.
