The Washington State Liquor Control Board, which has been charged with regulating the voter-created recreational marijuana industry, will not be limiting the size of cannabis grow operations, reports Jake Ellison at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
“The board has that ability and has not chosen at this time to set the size,” Mikhail Carpenter, a spokesman for the board told the paper this week.
Thee lack of restrictions doesn’t mean that the state foresees massive, thousand-acre pot farms any time soon. They say that the size of an operation will be dictated mostly by how well the applicants meet the state grow requirements for things like staffing, security and funding.
But that isn’t enough assurance for cities like Seattle, which is currently drafting zoning changes to address the issue and would limit grow facilities to no more than 50,000 square feet – or about 1.15 acres. That’s an increase of about 40,000 square feet from before. The city says the size jump is to make up for other restrictions that prohibit grow facilities from operating in about 45 percent of available industrial land because it is located near the water.
State officials have said that, in the future, they could limit the scope of growing the state by limiting the total amount of THC produced annually.
Check out the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for a map of Seattle’s proposed growing areas.