PORT ANGELES — A majority of the Board of Clallam County Commissioners is open to putting a new recreational marijuana ordinance before voters in an advisory ballot if commissioners approve the new law this fall.
Board members are expected to set a Sept. 8 hearing date for the new land-use law when they meet at 10 a.m. today at the Clallam County Courthouse.
The ordinance, which would replace interim rules that expire Sept. 27, would allow the growing, processing and sale of state-licensed marijuana in certain commercial and industrial zones.
Commissioners Jim McEntire and Bill Peach said Monday they would consider putting the measure on a nonbinding advisory ballot if the board first approves the rules.
Both indicated that they were inclined to favor the new regulations.
But while Commissioner Mike Chapman was undecided on the new law as of Monday, it would be “backward,” he said, for commissioners to approve the new ordinance and then let voters have their say.
McEntire said in an interview that voting for the ordinance and then putting it to a public vote, which is allowed under county charter, would give commissioners the chance “to go back to the drawing board and try something different.”
During the work session McEntire, the board chairman, said the board previously had broached the possibility of putting the ordinance to a vote.
“I’m still inclined as a personal preference that anything that involves fundamental rights like property rights should go to the people,” he said.
“That’s a good spur for us as a legislative body to pay close attention to how we do property rights.”
But Chapman saw no sense to it.
“Why would the board ask voters to do a referendum on something they voted into law?” Chapman said Monday in an interview after the commissioners’ work session.
Chapman, noting that a majority of Clallam County in 2012 voted in favor of marijuana-legalizing Initiative 502, said having an advisory vote if the board approves the rules would be as though the commissioners were saying, “we put this into law, now we want to see if you agree with us.”
He had an ally in Department of Community Development Director Mary Ellen Winborn, who attended the work session and whose agency put together the ordinance.
“I just don’t think it would be necessary,” she said in a later interview.
“I don’t mind it if it would make [the commissioners] feel better about it, but we’ve pretty much exhausted all the possibilities.
“We’ve just vetted it so many ways, there’s nothing else we could do.”
Both McEntire and Peach praised the ordinance, which the Planning Commission recommended for approval in a 7-1 vote.
“There’s been some really serious work on the front end of this,” Peach said during the work session.
“What I see in [the] proposal, I see areas with minimal impacts on private property rights.”
He called it “a good document” in a later interview Monday.
“If the public looks at the document and understood the document, I think they would like it.
“My position is, if the board approves it and it becomes law, and the public wants to rise up and do a referendum, they can do that.”
McEntire said he does not want to extend the interim marijuana land-use laws, which were adopted in October and already extended once, in March.
He also noted it’s too late to put an advisory measure on the Nov. 3 general election ballot.
The new law “sounds to me like it’s something I could be favorably disposed toward,” he said in the interview.
It is similar to the temporary restrictions now on the books.
It allows the growing, processing and sale of state-regulated pot in 12 county zones — not including rural neighborhoods.
The new ordinance, unlike the temporary restrictions, requires a conditional use permit for marijuana businesses in agricultural retention zones.
The other 11 zones would not have that requirement.
Four of those zones would require property line setbacks and minimum parcels sizes.
________
Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
