Grant Co. extends marijuana production moratorium

EPHRATA — The Grant County Commissioners have extended the moratorium on establishing new marijuana production or processing operations in unincorporated areas of the county for another six months.

“The moratorium is hereby renewed prohibiting within all areas of unincorporated Grant County the establishment, relocation or licensure of facilities, properties or businesses involving the production or processing of recreational marijuana and marijuana-infused products,” according to the ordinance approved by the commissioners Jan. 23.

“While said moratorium is in effect no building permit, occupancy permit, other development permit or approval, or business license shall be issued for any of the purposes or activities set forth above,” according to the ordinance.

Rebekah Kaylor, chief civil deputy prosecutor, said the moratorium includes a clause exempting existing facilities, or people who had completed an application or received a permit before it was imposed. The moratorium originally went into effect in July 2023. 

Commissioner Cindy Carter said the moratorium is part of the process of establishing regulations to govern marijuana production in Grant County. 

“We’re working up our universal development code,” she said. 

Because addressing one set of regulations necessarily affects others, commissioners decided to put a hold on the permit process while county officials worked out the issues, she said. 

Commissioner Rob Jones said the original moratorium followed an increase in requests to locate in Grant County last summer, after Chelan County revised its rules for marijuana production operations.

“All of a sudden, we were getting four or five (production facility) requests to transfer into Grant County every week,” Jones said.

Some production operations were already established, he said, but county officials weren’t — and aren’t — ready to accommodate a lot of operations from elsewhere. 

The county had few regulations, he said, and that led to concerns over where and how growing operations were being established, along with other issues like water use.

“We’re basically trying to put our code and regulations together,” he said. “They’re trying to get a good grip on what we want to see happen.

“We’ve kind of looked at the way Chelan County is doing theirs,” he said. 

Commissioners currently are considering a system that would allow existing operations to stay where they are with conditional use permits, he said, while new operations would be allowed only in permitted areas. Where permitted areas would be established is still under review.

One idea under consideration would designate areas zoned as industrial for marijuana production, rather than agricultural or commercial zones, Jones said. 

Carter said the challenges extended beyond zoning to areas like code enforcement.

“We really needed to address some of the concerns that had been brought to our attention,” she said.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.