SEQUIM –– Saying he didn’t think he would get a fair consideration for his proposed marijuana growing facility at a Dungeness Valley farm, Grover Grady withdrew his application for a county permit to site the facility.
“They were going to deny me anyway,” Grady said Friday. “And then if they did, they could have gone after anybody with greenhouses, so I’ll bite the bullet on this one.”
Clallam County planners had recommended the permit be denied after a hearing Wednesday, but Hearing Examiner Mark Nichols put a hold on the decision and ordered an environmental review that he said county planners should have done before the hearing.
“Nichols couldn’t agree with the denial because he had no legal grounds,” Grady said Friday.
“He stated on record they erred in not doing their part and then gave them more time to cover their mistake.”
Grady had sought to set up a 30,400-square-foot facility on property owned by Wayne Mustitch at 3931 Old Olympic Highway to grow and process recreational marijuana made legal by the November 2012 passage of Initiative 502.
Under the trade name Way Kool Productions, Grady has applied for a license to grow marijuana from the state Liquor Control Board but has not received one.
The plan was to convert nine greenhouses, which have been used as a commercial nursery for at least the past decade, to marijuana grow rooms.
Planners in August said Grady would not need to fill out a checklist for compliance with the State Environmental Policy Act, or SEPA, because the greenhouses were already being used.
“I would have done that in July if I knew I would have needed it,” Grady said.
Planners changed that opinion after discovering the greenhouses were never permitted and emailed Grady at 10:30 p.m. Sept. 5 to let him know they were recommending his project be denied.
“It was just within the last week before going to the hearing examiner that we found out they needed to permitted,” Community Development Director Sheila Roark Miller said Friday.
“They were operating a commercial business on a residential property. We’re not going to recommend an approval on a [conditional-use permit] when the current operation doesn’t meet today’s land-use codes.
“Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
Roark Miller said planners have been overloaded with project reviews from potential pot growers looking to set up facilities all over Clallam County as the state’s new legal marijuana industry ramps up.
That, she said, is why they didn’t realize the greenhouses were never permitted until days before the hearing.
“We’re loaded down pretty good here,” she said.
Grady said he will now look for another property for his business, though he noted he planned to move his family to the house on the property.
“Me and my family, we lost a house on this deal. We were moving to that property, to a house on that property,” he said.
“I guess we move on and reassess what options are there and see what we have to do under the new county rules that are under consideration.”
County commissioners are considering a new slate of regulations on where marijuana can be sited in unincorporated areas of Clallam County.
The proposed interim rules more clearly delineate where different levels of marijuana production and processing can be sited.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Joe Smillie can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052, or at jsmillie@peninsuladailynews.com.
