“What’s being proposed is a facility for the growing and processing (of marijuana), not retail sales,” said Maul. “So from that perspective, it’s no different than what we already allow in our code such as pharmaceutical production, alcohol production and agriculture production. All of those are already permissible within our code, so how is this any different from that?”
Unlike most other jurisdictions in the region, the city of Battle Ground decided not to impose a moratorium on marijuana facilities. That decision, Maul explained, was based on preparatory efforts made at the state level.
“The Liquor Control Board spent a tremendous amount of time trying to create standards for a new industry from the ground up,” he said. “They’ve had very regular contact and participation from local jurisdictions, and we didn’t think we could really add anything different to what they were requiring.”
According to Maul, the proprietors anticipate that the proposed processing facility would create 30 to 50 new jobs.
“It’s not just people clipping and drying the product,” he said. “You’ve got regional sales managers, botanists, chemists, a CFO, CEO, facility managers – quite a few of these jobs generated are legitimate family-wage jobs that can be very desirable to a community.
“It’s going to be a new industry and there’s definitely going to be some learning curves for us and everybody,” Maul added.
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