West Richland gets an earful on cannabis sales. Will it be next to lift retail ban?

Cannabis retail shops in West Richland don’t fit with the community’s family friendly vibe, said speaker after speaker at a Tuesday night city council meeting.

Twenty people spoke against a proposal to make cannabis retail sales legal in West Richland.

“Don’t sell out our community for a few bucks,” said resident Cody Lewis.

No one spoke in favor of allowing cannabis sales at the public hearing.

The city also received more than 40 emails on the proposal, with most, if not all, against the change in cannabis sales policy. The 10 most recently received emails were not immediately available to the public.

The council is expected to vote on whether to allow cannabis sales at its Nov. 21 meeting.

K&B Weaver, which has Slow Burn cannabis stores in Union Gap, Yakima and Moxee, Wash., applied to the city to rezone West Richland commercial general and limited areas and light industrial districts to allow retail cannabis sales.

That started a required city process.

The West Richland area already has the cannabis store Nirvana just outside the city limits.

The proposal the council is expected to consider would allow the sale of marijuana in the city’s light industrial zones if they can be located there far enough away from sensitive areas.

Washington state regulations call for a buffer area of 1,000 feet from places that include parks, schools, libraries, recreation centers, child care centers, public transit centers and game arcades.

While Pasco has recently allowed up to three cannabis stores in the city, West Richland would limit shops to one, which would be in addition to Nirvana.

City staff have estimated — based on data from the similar size city of Aberdeen — sales tax collection of $67,000 to $101,000 a year plus state shared revenue of about $60,000 a year.

Nirvana cannabis shop

The West Richland Planning Commission recommended on a 3-1 vote Sept. 14 that the proposal be approved.

Councilman John Smart said at the Tuesday meeting that he was disappointed the proposal was not stopped by the planning commission. The council needs to ensure that people appointed to city boards are there for “the right reason,” he said.

A 2023 survey of West Richland residents found that 48% of respondents strongly or somewhat support allowing cannabis sales and 34% somewhat or strongly oppose sales.

The survey, which was distributed through email, Facebook and the city website, drew 662 responses, or about 3.8% of residents.

Several people who commented Tuesday that they were not aware of the survey as answers were being collected, despite being longtime residents of West Richland.

Others said that the results were not statistically significant, given the town’s population of more than 17,000.

The city needs either a better survey or to put allowing cannabis retail sales to a vote, said Cody Lewis.

West Richland residents who live near Nirvana said that it has disrupted their quality of life.

Robin Brown said she hears noise from cars and sees bright lights from the shop near her home until 11 p.m. She has had police in her backyard at 2 a.m., something that never happened in 25 years until Nirvana opened.

Jennifer Dobson, who also lives near Nirvana, said a window has been broken out in a car in their driveway.

People have run through their yard and ditched items they didn’t want police to catch them with, she said. The next morning they jumped a wall as they returned to search her yard for what they had hidden.

Neighbors have had car prowlers who have “cussed them out and told them to go back into their house” when they opened their front doors and asked them what they were doing, she said in a written comment to the city.

She has made three reports to police.

Cannabis tax revenue

Many people brought up the quality of life in West Richland, saying having another cannabis shop in West Richland would not be a good fit with the small town, family friendly feeling they like.

“We should not resort to drug dealers for revenue for our city,” said Rob Palmer.

Rob Anderson said West Richland will become known for cannabis shops if the council approves the change in policy.

Others said they were not confident that if cannabis sales are allowed there would be only one more cannabis shop in addition to Nirvana.

“We do not need to be pot central,” said Dan Richey.

The additional revenue from cannabis sales would not make up for the need for increased policing and other impacts on the city, said several people.

Patricia Dobson said she had been fighting attempts to allow cannabis shops for years, but the message seems to fall on deaf ears.

In 2014 after months of debate, the West Richland City Council voted 4-3 to permanently ban retail sales of cannabis in West Richland.

Tuesday night Smart told fellow council members that they needed a way to keep the issue from coming up again.

He said on a recent visit to Seattle there was open drug use on the street near Pike Place Market and a sickening smell of marijuana.

“That is the influence we are seeing trying to infiltrate our community,” he said.

Councilman Richard Bloom said the issue was significant enough to be brought to a public vote.

Most of the council made no comment on the cannabis sales proposal at the Tuesday meeting.