Last June the state legislature voted to give cities the authority to reduce buffers around retail marijuana businesses, leading the Kirkland City Council to consider reducing the 1,000-foot buffers around day cares to 100 feet.

Under regulations from the state Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB), the city can host four retail marijuana businesses.

The city currently has two retail businesses located in Totem Lake industrial zones where city officials approved marijuana businesses to set up in March 2015, with a third in the process of being approved.

A fourth and final marijuana retail business also applied for a city license after recently receiving a permit from the LCB.

Jeff Anderson, president of the IHPP Corporation which applied for the final permit, said their city permit for a location across 120th Avenue Northeast from the Kirkland Costco was denied due to environmental restrictions, which do not currently allow retail businesses in protected zones.

The city is currently reviewing their environmental restrictions and Anderson is waiting to see if the city will reduce buffers around day care centers, which he said will open up far more options for locating the business.

According to a memorandum by city staff, as many as 158 new locations could become available.

“Any opening up of reduced buffers would allow us to find other locations within the city,” Anderson said. “We’re really restricted by both the city and the state right now to where they are.”

LCB spokesperson Brian Smith said when they issue state licenses they do not look at local zoning regulations, leaving that to the cities.

Smith said if the city approves Anderson for a city retail permit, the LCB would allow them to locate there.

“The zoning requirements are done strictly at the local level, and they change a lot,” he said. “We look at whether they meet the state credentials.”

Current zoning restrictions (marked on the map in bright light blue and dark red) only allow marijuana retail businesses to set up in a handful of locations, including in Totem Lake, near Costco and a few other plots scattered around the city.

This has led to a clustering of businesses, making it harder for customers to reach the locations with no stores located in south Kirkland.

Kirkland City Council member Toby Nixon said this inaccessibility makes it harder for the city to stamp out the black market, which was one of the key arguments made in favor of passing Initiative 502 in 2012, which legalized a recreational marijuana market in Washington State.

If street dealers are easier to reach, Nixon said the black market will likely continue.

“That really hinders the implementation of Initiative 502 because what we’re trying to do is significantly reduce and hopefully eventually eliminate the black market,” he said. “I would like to see us eliminate the criminal element from the marijuana market.”

Nixon said reducing buffers around day cares likely won’t have any effect since retail stores are required to ID customers when they enter the store.

Instead, Nixon said locating marijuana businesses near schools or along school walking paths, which are not having their buffers reduced, would pose a much greater problem. Children of day care age are much younger, and less likely to be walking to day care unattended, he said.

“I worry a lot less about proximity to day care centers than I do about proximity to schools,” he said.

A memorandum from city staff on reducing buffers states that since the city is only allowed to permit four retail marijuana businesses, opening up potential locations by reducing buffers around day care centers would not result in more stores, but allow more flexibility for existing applicants to set up.

The city of Redmond is considering a similar action, which prompted a protest from residents on May 17.

The city will be holding a public hearing at some point in June and will be sent to the Council in July for action.

Until then, Anderson said he isn’t going anywhere.

“Hopefully there will be some resolve in the middle to late summer, so we’re kind of in a holding pattern,” he said.