A church next to a pot shop. Who would have thought? In an ideal world, or Amsterdam, these two could coexist in harmony. But our world is different, just removed from the Land of Taboo. So, something had to give, right?
Just yesterday, a protest by the church next door poured out into the street in front of Uncle Ike’s Pot Shop, at 23rd and Union in Seattle’s Central District. CapitolHillSeattle.com did a wonderful job, as always, covering this event.
While the church’s objective was to bring light to the fact that there is a recreational marijuana shop just next door to a sanctuary where kids attend, and hopefully change the laws, there is always a chance the plan will backfire and actually bring more publicity and traffic to the area, and eventually more business to Uncle Ike’s. After all, this event was covered throughout the State by local media outlets and a matter of time before the national players get a hold of it.
But, let’s play devil’s advocate here. Although we do not agree with the part of the protest that was condemning the legal plant, the Church does bring up an inconsistency in I-502 regulations that state a retail cannabis shop must be 1,000 away from day cares, school, parks and arcades, to name a few locations. All of which are locations where children frequent. And so is a church, but apparently nobody considered this establishment as part of the discussion – or if they did – they decided to leave it out.
If you are going include a church into the argument, wouldn’t you have to include other places as well? For example, what if there was a home next door to a pot shop which housed a family of 6 including 4 kids? Or, what if there was a toy store next to a pot shop? Or a family restaurant?
If one begins to add everything under the sun, then it turns into something silly. Maybe this inconsistency of the I-502 location regulations should be reviewed. Not to add any locations, but to remove them. After all, alcohol and tobacco at times, are often in close proximity to where children are.
