Parents fume at D.C. marijuana dispensary allowed to open by preschool

D.C. officials on Thursday denied a challenge to a medical marijuana dispensary opening just steps away from a Northwest preschool, highlighting tensions between the city’s budding cannabis industry and residents who fear children could get prematurely exposed to drugs.

The city’s Alcoholic Beverage and Cannabis Administration sided unanimously with Green Theory dispensary in a 3-0 vote to dismiss a neighborhood-led legal protest to their opening.

Green Theory owner Jonathan Crandall said the dispensary will open for business on Monday. The grand opening is planned for April 27.

The ABCA’s ruling left a sour taste in the mouths of parents who sparred with the city over the now-finalized location.

“They’re putting cannabis over kids, and they’re serving the interests of the cannabis industry,” Lucy Sullivan, the parent of a student at a nearby elementary school, told The Washington Times. “There’s no parent or anybody that works with kids that thinks that stores selling marijuana, marijuana gummies, marijuana cookies, is a good idea to have these kinds of stores next door to schools, next door to playgrounds, next door to libraries.”

Thursday’s vote reaffirmed the ABCA’s decision last month to approve Green Theory’s business license in the tony Palisades neighborhood, despite outcry from residents over the location that is a few doors down from a preschool and in an area where multiple other schools are located.

A coalition of residents from the neighbors protested last month that the dispensary’s MacArthur Boulevard location should not be allowed to open because it violates both federal and local laws barring medical marijuana dispensaries from operating near schools. 

The neighbors also took issue with Green Theory’s business plan from December which said the dispensary was interested in having a “summer garden” outdoor consumption area.

Mr. Crandall said his business “never applied” for a summer garden endorsement on its application.

ABCA’s legal counsel penned a letter to residents saying District laws — which are subject to congressional review — make exemptions for dispensaries in commercial areas.

Friction over the laws guiding marijuana dispensaries reached the D.C. Council last week. 

Brooke Pinto, Ward 2 Democrat, and Charles Allen, Ward 6 Democrat, proposed revoking the commercial area exemption for dispensaries near schools in light of Green Theory and another proposed dispensary’s opening in Penn Quarter.

Ms. Pinto said the two dispensaries would be allowed to reapply for a new location without any drawbacks and would avoid bringing the canna-businesses around students “between the impressionable ages of 10 and 18.”

But the measure failed in a 6-6 vote, with Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie, at large independent, saying that it’s too drastic a change to make for just two businesses. 

Chairman Phil Mendelson explained resistance to the measure by saying local lawmakers would be “changing the rules in the middle of the process.” He said the council, after setting the medical cannabis policy, would be pulling the rug out from businesses by remaking the rules.

“I think it is better for us to stay out of this,” he said.