Pot Shop Robberies, Deaths Fuel Calls for US Banking Bill

By GENE JOHNSON, Related Press

SEATTLE (AP) — A surge in robberies at licensed hashish retailers — together with a pistol-whipping, gunshots and killings in Washington state final month — helps gasoline a renewed push for federal banking reforms that might make the cash-dependent shops a much less interesting goal.

“It makes completely no sense that authorized companies are being pressured to function fully in money, and it’s harmful — and typically even deadly — for workers behind the register,” Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the third-ranking Democrat within the Senate, mentioned in an announcement emailed to The Related Press.

Though 18 states have legalized the leisure use of marijuana, and 37 permit its medical use, it stays unlawful beneath federal regulation. Due to that, large banks and bank card firms have lengthy been reluctant to work with the trade, leaving the companies closely reliant on money and making them engaging marks for robbers.

On the annual 4/20 marijuana vacation Wednesday, Murray held a information convention at a suburban Seattle hashish retailer to say she is going to prioritize marijuana banking reform as a part of her work as a key negotiator on a convention committee that’s ironing out variations in Home and Senate variations of a significant federal competitiveness and innovation invoice.

Hashish trade activists mentioned they take into account her announcement an necessary sign that after years of labor, the banking situation may lastly get resolved this yr, permitting monetary establishments to deal with marijuana cash in states the place it’s authorized with out worry of federal prosecution, lack of their federal deposit insurance coverage or different penalties.

There just lately has been an enormous spike within the robberies for causes that are not fully clear. Dozens of hashish companies within the San Francisco Bay Space have been hit final fall in a wave of assaults that typically appeared coordinated. Business trackers in Washington state have reported no less than 80 up to now this yr, largely within the Puget Sound area.

Whereas dispensaries are frequent targets for robberies, the spate in Washington helps drive the nationwide dialog about banking reform. Final month, a suspect shot and killed an worker at a hashish retailer in Tacoma; an ID checker shot and killed a robber in Covington; Seattle police shot and killed a suspect following a theft in Bellevue; and a robber pistol-whipped a employee at an Everett store.

In the previous few days, police have arrested a 15-year-old boy and a 16-year-old boy within the killing of worker Jordan Brown, 29, at Tacoma’s World of Weed. Authorities mentioned the pair have been accountable for no less than 10 different armed robberies, together with a number of at pot retailers.

“The variety of these robberies is surprising,” mentioned David Postman, the chairman of the Washington Liquor and Hashish Board.

The board prior to now month has held public security discussions with retailers, recruited regulation enforcement to speak to retailers about greatest practices, and labored with state monetary regulators to focus on native banks and credit score unions that work with the trade in addition to third-party distributors that hashish retailers can use to conduct cashless cellphone transactions.

Marijuana retailers that may afford it have employed personal safety guards, typically at prices of greater than $50,000 a month for a round the clock element, mentioned Adán Espino, government director of the Craft Hashish Coalition, which represents greater than 60 retail shops in Washington. A few of the companies have tried to rent guards, solely to seek out that safety firms are fully booked, he mentioned.

Espino mentioned he is pushing for state lawmakers to present tax credit to hashish shops that need to shell out cash for safety.

Mary Mart, a hashish outlet in Tacoma, employed armed safety in March after it was robbed twice in two months — together with, police say, by the 2 teenagers who days later killed Brown. Budtender Amara Barnes, who was not current for both theft, mentioned she and different staff had their hours lower to assist offset the fee.

“It is scary. I had labored right here for 4 years with none type of incident,” Barnes mentioned. “To have a pair children are available and try this, it actually shakes the boldness.”

Officers and trade advocates say hiring safety and coaching staff on greatest practices will not resolve the issue the way in which federal approval of hashish banking would.

Colorado Democratic Rep. Ed Perlmutter launched the SAFE Banking Act in 2013 quickly after Washington and Colorado turned the primary states to legalize the regulated sale of marijuana. The invoice would maintain federal regulators from penalizing banks that work with licensed hashish companies.

The Home has handed it half a dozen occasions with bipartisan assist, nevertheless it has by no means handed the Senate, the place it has 42 co-sponsors, together with 9 Republicans. Majority Chief Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, has insisted that he would like to see federal legalization of marijuana, together with measures to redress harms attributable to the battle on medicine, earlier than addressing banking.

Schumer, nevertheless, just lately introduced that his marijuana laws wouldn’t be able to introduce this month as initially deliberate.

Supporters of fixing the banking downside first now see a possibility, particularly with Murray saying that she is going to prioritize it in her work. David Mangone, director of coverage and authorities affairs for The Liaison Group, a Washington, D.C.-based hashish lobbying agency, known as information of Murray’s assertion “a fairly large deal.”

In a letter to Schumer and different senators Tuesday, Perlmutter cited the robberies and deaths in Washington state in assist of approving banking reform as quickly as doable. He known as the banking reform “a direct resolution to get money off our streets and guarantee state-legal, official companies can function like another sort of enterprise.”

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