Is Pasco ready for retail cannabis? These 3 businesses are 1st in line to open stores

Carl Holder steps out from the intricately designed white concrete columns that frame the sunrise-colored exterior of 402 W. Lewis St.

He glances down the sidewalks, peering on at downtown Pasco’s empty promenades.

“If you look down the street, all the way down to 6th and 7th (avenues), you don’t see anybody on the sidewalks,” says Holder, 72, on a recent Monday afternoon.

Then he shifts east toward the old Bank of America building, and points to rows of empty storefronts.

“You can’t look at this area and say there’s any sort of economic vitality here.”

Downtown Pasco has been a focal point for revitalization efforts in recent years, with the city investing millions into infrastructure and adopting its first master plan in hopes that the nine-block business district will become a cultural and economic hub.

The area already employs almost 8,000 and plays host to several annual events, such as the Fiery Food Festival, but struggles persist with crime and a steady number of unhoused individuals.

That’s why Holder is looking to bring a new industry to the area: retail cannabis.

And he wants to start first by opening a shop in his building at 3rd Avenue and Lewis Street.

Having a heavily regulated, sustainable business downtown would bring more foot traffic and serve as a magnet to neighboring Hispanic businesses, Holder argues.

“I certainly think this store would get rid of a lot of riff-raff,” he said.

Pasco is on track to lift its ban on retail cannabis in its commercial and industrial zones sometime in the coming weeks or months.

It would be the first of the Tri-Cities city governments to allow retail shops in the city limits. And it would be the first anywhere in Franklin County.

There are three in unincorporated Benton County and Prosser.

The Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board — which aggressively regulates and enforces cannabis retail, production and processing — has limited Pasco to just four state retail licenses based on the city’s population size.

Here are the three businesses already in line to open a store when the city agrees to open:

Biggie’s Pot Shop

Eric Larson, an executive with Evergreen State Investments LLC, says he plans to open Biggie’s Pot Shop this summer if Pasco lifts its ban.

Larson and his business partner, Thomas Platfoot, hold title certificates for a state retail license under the name Clear Mind Cannabis.

Platfoot had operated a delivery service for medical patients in Vancouver under the business name Clear Mind Medical until changes in regulation took place in 2016.

Larson said he’s been out shoelacing Pasco, looking for buildings to lease or buy.

“There’s a lot that goes into these stores that people don’t understand, all the way from security to how you organize traffic flow,” he said.

He’s keeping his options open, but they’ve shied away from downtown in search of more high-traffic areas.

“I think there’s more opportunities in other parts of the city,” Larson said.

Green2Go

Steve Lee, co-owner of Green2Go in Finley, said he wants to open a Pasco location “as soon as possible,” but didn’t give a timeline because the city council hasn’t finalized details and its ordinance.

He’s still looking for a storefront or any “option that works.”

“I’m glad they went with the zoning choice they made because that was the only way that any store would open up and be successful,” said Lee, who served four years on the Kennewick City Council and was the mayor pro-tem.

Finding space in Pasco has proven to be a challenge, though, since the best locations in the city are undeveloped, he said. Lee said most pot shops are not looking to build because those projects would have to be financed either privately or with cash because of federal restrictions.

Plus, Pasco has “so many schools, parks, playgrounds, arcades and registered child centers that it eliminates more than 80% of the available commercial spaces in Pasco,” Lee said.

Steve and Jessy Lee have been involved in the cannabis industry since 2012, when they started out as a “delivery-based medical cannabis collective” and later had a walk-in medical marijuana dispensary in West Richland. The couple also bet that Pasco would eventually lift its retail ban, so they applied for a license and title certificate.

In 2016, they opened their mom-and-pop pot shop Green2Go in Finley just outside the Kennewick city limits to make retail “fresh, obtainable and safe” for Tri-City residents, Steve Lee said previously.

He believes it will be hard for all three Pasco stores to find pockets to operate in because of the rules and political pressures.

Lee said he wouldn’t be surprised if all the shops ultimately ended up in east Pasco or near the King City truck stop.

Lucky Leaf

Lucky Leaf — a Spokane cannabis retailer run by Pasco native David Morgan — plans to open shop in Holder’s downtown building.

Holder, a retired energy consultant who lives in Richland, has owned the 5,100-square-foot building along Lewis Street since 1999.

The building was erected as a Seattle First National Bank, Holder said. The single-story building features two walk-in vaults with foot-thick stainless steel doors manufactured by the Mosler Safe Company. It’s a nice utility considering cannabis dispensaries are cash-based businesses.

A cell phone repair store leased the space for a decade until the owner moved out in March 2022.

Holder said he’s trying to breathe life back into the building.

“It has real history. It’s made out of concrete and steel. You would never build a building like this anymore. It’s in as good a shape today as it was in the ‘30s, and it will be the same in the next 300 years,” he said.

As Holder tells it, Seattle First eventually sold the building to construct a new one across 3rd Avenue in 1969.

After a number of sales, Holder eventually came to own it by way of the South Columbia Basin Irrigation District. Several businesses have occupied the building since its glory days as a bank, including congressional campaigns, a tax and advisory business, an internet provider and an online second-hand retailer.

“I’m a building owner. I’m looking for stability, long tenure and profitability,” and Lucky Leaf checks all the boxes, Holder said.

Holder added that he’s ready to invest $25,000 in new lights, windows and interior improvements to the building once the ban is lifted.

“This is going to be the catalyst for a revitalization. It’s going to bring investment, and people and press,” Holder said. “It’ll be something spectacular for downtown Pasco, something we haven’t ever had for downtown Pasco.”

Decade in the making

Holder reached out to Morgan about bringing a Lucky Leaf store to Pasco about 14 months ago.

In February 2022, Holder sent a letter to the city council asking it to reconsider the ban, setting off a flurry of debate among Pasco residents.

The city last fall hosted two listening sessions for residents, and hundreds chimed in. Some skeptics in the business community said it would be better to zone retail cannabis in industrial zones only and that they should keep it out of downtown and commercial districts.

Morgan had been involved in previous efforts to open a shop downtown in 2014 with another property owner next door to Holder, but faced hurdles with a moratorium on marijuana-related businesses.

The Liquor and Cannabis Control Board also reversed its decision to allow a license to Morgan downtown because it would have opened within 1,000 feet of Peanuts Park and a plaza that hosts the city’s farmers market.

Holder’s old bank building also in within the 1,000-foot buffer of Peanuts Park, but he said they plan to file for an exemption since it doesn’t fit the traditional sense of a children’s park as listed in state law.

The city’s moratorium ultimately led to a citywide ban on all retail, processing and production operations passed by the city council in 2014.

But Morgan tried opening a shop again in 2015 in the King City truck stop area along Highway 395, citing a change in law that allowed local governments to collect some of the 37% sales tax.

Morgan was ultimately forced to close again because of the existing ban and because he was operating without a city business license. He later transferred his cannabis license to Spokane.

“Prohibiting cannabis retail in Pasco has zero positive effects for Pasco and its residents,” Morgan said in a letter sent to the city council last week.

“It’s in Pasco’s best interest to allow cannabis retail businesses which will keep spending in Pasco and enable Pasco to collect its share of sales and excise taxes. Allowing cannabis retail in Pasco will create jobs and contribute to Pasco’s economic development having a majority trickle effect on ancillary businesses that supply goods and services to cannabis retail.”

He later told the Tri-City Herald that he was “extremely happy” with the council’s decision to broadly lift the ban.

“Cannabis retail establishments have run flawlessly in Walla Walla, Yakima, West Richland and Finley, so I see no reason whatsoever to make me believe the same couldn’t be said for Pasco,” he said.

Pasco could receive at least $200,000 in revenue annually through a per capita distribution from the state’s 37% excise tax, said city spokesperson Jon Funfar. That would not include any additional revenue that may be raised from local sales.

Washington voters passed Initiative 502 more than a decade ago to legalize and comprehensively regulate the production, possession and retail of cannabis statewide. Today, Washingtonians must be 21 years old or older to buy recreational pot.

While the initiative passed with 55% statewide approval, 61% of voters in Franklin County were opposed to it. But opinions have shifted over time.

A 2021 community survey showed that 46% of Pasco residents would not back changes to allow marijuana retail sales in city limits, while about 45% said they would strongly or somewhat support it.