After a year of task force work, pot in Seattle is still too white — Report says city will need to change zoning to give social equity owners a chance

The Seattle City Council’s Finance and Housing Committee is hearing an update Tuesday morning on the city’s social justice initiatives to help reshape equity in Seattle’s small business communities. A long-delayed effort to bring a more equitable mix of owners into the city’s legal cannabis economy is in the mix.

2021 started with delayed efforts as an 18-member Social Equity in Cannabis Task Force dug in on work to ensure communities that were heavily policed during the war on drugs can gain a foothold in the state’s legal pot market.

In Tuesday’s update, the city’s Department of Finance and Administrative Services laid out the facts about current ownership –“As of January 2020, 42 of Seattle’s 48 cannabis retail stores had white majority ownership, of those 37 by white men” — and a framework for what it will cost to get the program moving in Seattle including the major challenges posed by current statutes and the city’s zoning laws. Officials say current restrictions limit the city to a number of new stores community groups say won’t be enough to make a dent in the predominantly white ownership: Seattle only has room for two new shops.

“King County Equity Now and Black Excellence in Cannabis have demanded the City ask for 30 social equity licenses,” the Department of Finance and Administrative Services report (PDF) reads. “Seattle does not have a cap or moratorium; however, existing zoning and land use restrictions make it difficult to site even two new stores.”

The report says stakeholders want the City Council to expand more of Seattle’s land use to allow social equity retail licenses.

CHS last reported on Seattle’s cannabis land crunch in September as one of the few coveted parcels in the city that can be licensed for marijuana retail hit the real estate market in the Central District. So far, no transaction has been recorded at the address but Ponder owner John Branch told CHS he eventually intends to sell the license to a buyer who might be interested in reopening a shop nearby once the property is purchased for redevelopment.

Meanwhile, the Department of Finance and Administrative Services has put a price tag on creating the program and says work organizing city departments to make it happen has begun involving the Office of Economic Development to “help support business development,” and the Seattle Department of Construction & Inspections to “support expansion of cannabis zoning for social equity licenses.”

Funding and community partners still need to be identified, according to the report, and potential funding would include $1.3 to $1.4 million annually from the cannabis excise tax, money that is currently distributed into the city’s general fund.

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