By Cooper Inveen, Reporter
WNPA Olympia News Bureau

With all the complications that local bans have caused for Washington’s recreational pot market,
two state-licensed businessmen have decided to take matters into their own hands.

Tedd Wetherbee and Mike Henery own the Gallery, a pot shop-art gallery mashup that
celebrated its grand opening in Parkland, Pierce County, on March 1. Media attention hasn’t
focused on the thousands of dollars in artwork that adorns the Soho-style space, but rather the
business’s dubious legality.

The Gallery is the first state-licensed recreational marijuana outlet to open in a county that
outlaws recreational marijuana. The two owners say their actions are not a jab at the county, but
rather a response to something larger.

“This is two licensed businessmen exerting their right to operate,” Wetherbee said. “We got a
license from the state. The state went through our backgrounds with a microscope and said, ‘You
guys qualify, go do this.’ And so we’re doing this.”

One day after opening, Pierce County code enforcement descended upon the Gallery with a
verbal cease-and-desist order, and on March 5 the county officially demanded they shut their
doors. They have 14 days to respond and could face a $1,000 fine for each day thereafter they
don’t.

Wetherbee says that doesn’t change anything.

“We plan on filing for an injunction to prevent them from trying to close us while the appeal
process takes place,” he said. “And we can keep that process going as long as we want.”

In Washington, 52 cities among 281 incorporated have enacted bans on the selling of
recreational marijuana and 42 others have enacted moratoriums, or temporary bans. Pierce,
Yakima, Clark and Walla Walla counties have bans in place to cover unincorporated areas, and
seven more have moratoriums. There are 39 counties in the state.

All that stands between the owners of the Gallery and a fully legal operation is a Pierce County
business license. In December 2013 the County Council passed an ordinance requiring
recreational pot shops to obtain a conditional-use permit before being issued a business license.
The biggest county roadblock, according to the ordinance, is that no permits can be distributed as
long as marijuana is still considered a Schedule I substance by the federal government.

In the days leading up to the Gallery’s opening, Al Rose, the county’s executive director of
justice services, said that selling marijuana, even with a permit from the state Liquor Control
Board, would be a violation of Washington’s Uniform Controlled Substances Act and would
constitute a criminal offense. Due to a lack in regulations, medical marijuana dispensaries are
exempt from that policy.

“On your way here you’ll see three [medical within a half mile of us in one
direction, and they’re opening every day,” Henery said. “We didn’t want to go that route. We
never had any intention of going against the government by opening up an illegal dispensary.
And yet these places are everywhere, without any regulation.”

Rose said that although recreational and medical marijuana are completely different beasts when
it comes to regulations, they’re not going to crack down on recreational markets while allowing
medical dispensaries to continue operating.

“With medical you can say, ‘Hey I'm running a dispensary and here's my paperwork.’ That
would be your defense. With recreational you don't have that defense," he said. He added that the
county has more than 80 medical dispensaries and that the council is currently devising measures
that would allow them to shut the dispensaries down if the Legislature doesn’t come up with a
regulatory scheme by June.

Fifty-four percent of Pierce County voters approved Initiative 502 during the 2012 election,
authorizing the creation of a state-regulated marijuana market for adults. Other cities and
counties that have outlawed recreational pot sales saw similar voting patterns. The situation is a
source of tension between voters and local officials.

“This is the only time I’ve decided that I’m going to make a decision against what the majority
says, and I do get criticized for it,” said Dan Roach, chair of the Pierce County Council and son
of Sen. Pam Roach, R-Auburn, who is president pro tempore of the Senate as well as vice chair
of the Senate Rules Committee.

Although he acknowledges people in the county want recreational marijuana, he says his time in
politics has shown him people want lower taxes and public safety, two things he believes would
be compromised by “marijuana users who start using harder drugs, go on to a life of crime,
end up in our jail system and all the rehab and social programs we have to fund.”
The city of Snohomish issued a similar ban.

“In order to get a business license, you have to comply with federal and state law. So our
position is that if you violate federal law, you can’t get a business license,” said Snohomish
Mayor Karen Guzak. Fifty-four percent of Snohomish County residents voted in favor of I-502,
and Guzak’s was the swing vote that ultimately allowed the City Council to adopt the ban in
October.