Eric Wilkinson, KING 5 News
6:41 p.m. PST November 5, 2015
BELLINGHAM, Wash. The party was almost over before it began at Bellingham’s Trove Cannabis. The
recreational pot shop is due to open November 13, but the owners got a visit from the State Liquor and
Cannabis Board.
“They came one day and told us we have a problem,” said co-owner YinHo Lai.
The problem was Cascade Herb Company, right across the street, had been granted permission to open a
video arcade just a few feet from its front door.
Cannabis retailers are not allowed to open within 1,000 feet of anything like an arcade that could attract
children, but a legal loophole apparently allows an arcade to open next to an already existing pot shop.
That’s what the owners of Cascade Herb did.
Inside the locked arcade you can see a couple old pinball and Pac-Man games waiting to be plugged in. The owner of Cascade Herb won’t say what his
plans are for the space.
Lai doesn’t like the idea.
“To have an arcade that could drive children into a location so close by where all that activity is going on, that’s a loophole I hope will close,” he said.
(Photo: KING)
According to Bellingham city officials, Cascade can operate beside the arcade because the pot shop was there first. Lai’s store, which is inside the 1,000
foot buffer zone came after. That could mean Trove Cannabis can’t open for business, according to the city. To Lai, it looks like Cascade was trying to use
the arcade to kill competition in the neighborhood. The recent WWU grad, his partner and family have invested about a million dollars into a brand new
building.
“It means bankruptcy,” said Lai.
Cascade’s owner says that was not his intent. He added that old school arcades are likely to attract an older demographic, not high school teens.
This week the City of Bellingham stepped in and granted a temporary reprieve to Trove, allowing it to open as the state reviews its rules.
A spokesman for the Washington Liquor and Cannabis Board told KING 5, “This situation is something that we will need to discuss with our Assistant
Attorney General and Licensing staff.”
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