Washington sees a rash of deadly dispensary robberies as cannabis-related banking reforms languish | Inexperienced Zone | Spokane | The Pacific Northwest Inlander

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click on to enlarge Keeping cannabis a largely cash-only business comes with obvious risks.

Protecting hashish a largely cash-only enterprise comes with apparent dangers.





Hashish retailers have been coping with an growing variety of robberies in current months, and final week noticed a number of such incidents take a lethal flip.

Three separate robbery-related fatalities have been reported on the west facet over a four-day span. Two of the three killed have been suspects in tried armed robberies, whereas the third was a dispensary worker. These deaths come as dispensaries across the state have been coping with a surge in crime concentrating on their companies.

Final month, the Washington Senate unanimously handed Senate Invoice 5927, which might add a 12 months to the sentence of anybody convicted of first or second-degree theft of a hashish retailer. The invoice was launched in January, because the wave of robberies was rising. Nonetheless, it didn’t make it by the Home earlier than the annual legislative session ended on March 10.

Within the days after the invoice was launched, Seattle’s KING-TV reported that there had been greater than 30 incidents of violent crimes concentrating on dispensaries in Washington between November and January.

The primary lethal theft final week occurred at a Bellevue dispensary on Wednesday, March 16. Three suspects fled, and police tracked them to a neighborhood in south Seattle. Two of the three surrendered however a 3rd engaged in a standoff. Seattle police say that suspect opened hearth on regulation enforcement, who then returned hearth, killing the suspect.

A day later in Covington, a suburb southwest of Seattle, an armed suspect tried to rob the Euphorium dispensary and took an worker hostage. The suspect was fatally shot by the dispensary’s armed safety guard. Using armed safety guards at dispensaries is really useful by the Washington State Liquor and Hashish board.

Then on Sunday, an worker at World of Weed in Tacoma was shot and killed by an assailant throughout an armed theft, based on the Tacoma Police Division.

Within the days following the deadly armed robberies, the Washington State Treasurer’s Workplace has been growing its requires hashish banking reforms, which on the federal degree have repeatedly stalled out in Congress. As a result of hashish stays unlawful on the federal degree, and federal banking reforms haven’t been enacted, many monetary establishments are cautious of getting concerned with the trade. Because of this, consultants imagine dispensaries are being focused by criminals largely attributable to their cash-dependent enterprise mannequin. ♦





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