Update: Pasco takes new direction on retail cannabis shops. Here’s what they decided

The Pasco City Council moved ahead Monday night with plans to draft an ordinance to lift its ban on retail cannabis in commercial and industrial zones.

And the council rejected a move to ask voters for their opinion on the issue.

The decision puts Pasco ever closer to becoming the first city government in the Tri-Cities to lift its ban on retail cannabis. But they will first need to pass an ordinance in the coming weeks or months before stores can open up to sell pot.

An estimate shows cannabis retailers could bring in at least $200,000 a year in revenue for Pasco, said Interim City Manager Adam Lincoln.

About a decade ago, Washington voters passed Initiative 502 to legalize and comprehensively regulate the production, possession and retail of cannabis statewide.

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.

Divided council

At Monday’s business meeting, the council first voted on asking voters whether or not the regulation of retail cannabis sales should be allowed.

That was voted down, 4-3, with Mayor Blanche Barajas, Mayor Pro Tem Craig Maloney and council members Zahra Roach and Joseph Campos voting against it.

Councilmen Pete Serrano, David Milne and Irving Brown Sr. voted in favor of putting the issue to the voters.

“I’ve long been a proponent of utilizing the advisory vote process to help us pulse the overwhelming majority of the public, not those who can make it on a certain night, or at a certain time, or at a certain location,” Serrano said.

Milne said he believed their decision on this issue would impact Pasco “for the next 50 years.”

Brown said putting the issue out to an advisory vote would have allowed citizens to have the final say on an issue that has been hotly debated for almost a decade now.

“We have enough information. So, by putting it on a ballot it allows... our constituents to speak, and once we hear from our constituents we move forward,” he said.

But Maloney said they’ve heard from hundreds of community members and stakeholders.

An advisory vote would have created “unnecessary churn in the community,” Maloney said, and the work would ultimately come back to the city council to decide.

“What (would) we do other than kick the can down the road?” he said.

The same majority that voted down the advisory vote then voted in favor of directing staff to draft an ordinance to allow retail cannabis sales in Commercial 1, 2, 3 zones and Industrial 1, 2 and 3 zones within Pasco city limits.

The ordinance will allow a local business owner to open a pot shop in downtown Pasco.

The Washington Liquor and Cannabis Board already limits Franklin County — including Pasco — to four retail cannabis licenses based on its population.

Three of those have so far been spoken for, said Pasco community and economic development director Rick White.

Advisory vote

Coming into Monday’s vote, it appeared the council had a majority supporting the advisory vote.

Campos spoke in favor of it at the March 6 meeting, but he ultimately voted against doing that.

“The argument is that it would have come back to us anyway and the vote is nonbinding,” he said. “It really took the better part of two weeks to think about this nonstop to get to where I was at.”

Campos said the council district he represents — District 2, which encompasses those industrial areas — was already amenable to the businesses.

“We shouldn’t discriminate on a business just because we don’t morally agree with them,” Campos said.

Last month, the Pasco City Council walked back a more-restrictive plan that would have lifted only its ban in industrial zones and require pot shops to also apply for a special-use permit.

Cannabis retailers would have been restricted to east Pasco — a plan Maloney called racist because of the area’s historically Black neighborhoods and historic disenfranchisement.

Brown — the city’s only Black council member, who represents northeast Pasco — said he didn’t believe lifting the ban in only industrial zones was intended as a “personal target” on east Pasco residents. But that was an important perspective to take into account.

“But, let’s take a demographic look: Where does it fall? In the marginalized communities. It was an awareness thing — something was brought up, to say, ‘Let’s rethink this.’ I have no problem with that,” he said.