Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell and members of the Seattle Metropolis Council signed a letter this week calling on the U.S. Senate to move the SAFE Banking Act.
The Safe and Truthful Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act would enable authentic pot retailers in states the place hashish is authorized to work with banks and bank card firms with out federal banking regulators pushback.
This comes as hashish companies face a public security disaster. There have been three deaths and 80 robberies at hashish dispensaries in Washington State this 12 months, in response to the Craft Hashish Coalition. That’s greater than the variety of circumstances in 2020 and 2021 mixed.
One cause for that is that hashish companies are pressured to make use of the cash-only mannequin, creating recognized money hordes for criminals to plunder.
“Each small enterprise deserves safety and stability and each worker deserves to be protected at their workplace,” Mayor Harrell mentioned in a press release. “Congress should act with urgency to move the SAFE Banking Act and provides retail hashish shops the commonsense entry to monetary instruments to assist maintain their employees, prospects and companies protected.”
Seattle Metropolis Councilmember Lisa Herbold added within the press assertion that “conserving hashish companies cash-only makes them targets for thefts. With out federal legislative motion, employees’ lives will proceed to be at risk.”
Based on officers, 37 states and the District of Columbia having handed some type of medical or leisure hashish legalization measures.
Medical and leisure hashish gross sales within the U.S. have been estimated to whole $25 billion final 12 months, however due to antiquated federal banking laws, nearly all hashish transactions are cash-based.
The SAFE Banking Act has been handed by the U.S. Home of Representatives six instances, however the Senate has by no means voted on the measure.
Mayor Harrell and Metropolis Council wrote this letter to Congress as a result of Senate leaving the measure out of a bigger invoice that the Senate is at the moment wrangling over, known as the COMPETES Act.
The Home included the SAFE Banking Act of their model of the COMPETES Act, however the Senate’s model doesn’t embrace the invoice in any respect. The letter to the Senate is meant to name on Senators to incorporate the SAFE Banking Act as a part of the ultimate COMPETES Act that would go to President Joe Biden’s desk.