In response to a recent spate of pot shop robberies in and around Seattle, King County Councilmember Reagan Dunn has been extremely keen to launch a Cannabis Safety Task Force. His proposal, made back in March, finally found footing, passing out of the full council on May 17 with seven out of the nine councilmembers voting yes and two abstaining. The motion directs King County Executive Dow Constantine to form a task force around the issue.
The task force’s stated goals, per a press release email sent out from Dunn, are to “bring together the King County Sheriff’s Office, the King County Prosecutor’s Office, marijuana shop retailers and local community members […] to identify resources necessary to aid law enforcement in the prevention of criminal activity targeting marijuana retailers, deepen interjurisdictional cooperation and data sharing to, and coordinate emphasis patrols by law enforcement.”
It will also perform an “analysis of the roughly $4.6 million in marijuana tax revenue that was removed from the Sheriff’s office budget in the 2021-22 biennial budget.”
While this suggests that a lack of law enforcement engagement with cannabis stores is to blame for the increase in robberies, there are a few alternate theories. The leading theory is the cannabis cash economy.
Because of the ongoing federal prohibition on cannabis, legal cannabis companies do not have access to traditional banking services. While many have been able to bank with credit unions and other institutions in whichever state they’re in, things like credit card processing are a no go. This creates the perception that there is an abundance of cash on hand, not to mention product that still has resale value on the street. Any article on cannabis retail robberies should mention that the majority of stores use a “secure drop system.” Employees deposit cash in a big, immovable safe that no one in the store can access at regular intervals during business hours. Unfortunately, perception can trump reality.
“This one specific issue of the banking, it’s really dangerous,” said King County Councilmember Jeanne Kohl-Welles, who co-sponsored the bill with Dunn. It’s also not a new issue, and the solution is well known. Republicans have blocked the SAFE Banking Act — which exempts financial institutions who work with the cannabis industry from federal penalties — six times since it was first introduced, according to Marijuana Moment’s Kyle Jaeger.
As for the situation in King County, in which, according to the Washington CannaBusiness Association (WACA), 70 retailers have been robbed since the beginning of 2022, it may have been a short-lived spree. Contacted via text in April, Uncle Ike’s Pot Shop owner Ian Eisenberg posited that a small number of robbers was to blame for the large number of robberies. While he did suggest that a lack of officers made the process take longer, he also said that the Seattle Police Department had already handled it.
“Robberies have stopped or slowed down since they caught two crews doing a lot of them,” he wrote.
The SPD’s success in seeing off the most active robbers in the area also highlights the fact that, according to the final bill digest of Dunn’s motion, using data supplied by the King County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO), only nine robberies occurred at locations served primarily by the sheriff.
That said, if increasing the KCSO’s enforcement presence at pot shops and redirecting cannabis cash their way is the strategy the county intends to go with, can the task force do anything to change police assignments or redirect the funds in question? Not directly, but it can make recommendations.
“It’s not an ordinance, it’s a motion,” Kohl-Welles said. That means that it remains up to Constantine to decide who sits on the task force. That will determine what the recommendations are. While she said she couldn’t speak for Dunn, Kohl-Welles said she sees the Cannabis Safety Task Force’s mission as more open-ended than just re-funding the sheriff’s office.
“It’s not [just] local law enforcement, I think it’s more about security concerns. Because there’s nothing law enforcement can do right now, unless the feds — Congress and the president — signs this new law,” she said. She didn’t specify which law. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D) promised a bill to legalize cannabis at the federal level.
She also made it clear that banking reform hasn’t been forgotten by the council and that she plans to add it to the council’s list of priorities for their federal lobbyist, a move for which she expects no opposition given that all of her colleagues voted in favor of the Cannabis Safety Task Force.
The task force has a relatively quick timeline — the group has been directed to report their findings to the council by Aug. 31. But what’s Dunn trying to demonstrate here?
Dunn is running as a Republican challenger in the 8th legislative district against U.S. Rep. Kim Schrier (D). Hot on the heels of Black Lives Matter’s calls to defund the police, restoring funding to law enforcement has become politically popular among conservatives, similar to the “tough on crime” message of the ’80s and ’90s. Dunn’s four press releases regarding the task force all specifically mention the sheriff’s missing $4.6 million in cannabis excise tax. Dunn’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Tobias Coughlin-Bogue is the associate editor of Real Change News.
Tobias Coughlin-Bogue was the associate editor at Real Change through October 2023.
Read more of the Jun 1-7, 2022 issue.