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The Pasco City Council split 4-3 on Tuesday night to back a fifth cannabis retail store just off Road 90, near Reynolds Middle School, over the objections of the mayor and two colleagues who warned the vote would not be the last time the council is asked to grow the list.
Council members Abel Campos, Mark Figueroa, Calixto Hernandez and Leo Perales voted to tell the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board that the city supports the application from Compas LLC for a store at 5804 Road 90, Suites F and G. Mayor Charles Grimm, Mayor Pro Tem David Milne and Councilman Joe Cotta voted no.
The vote does not open the store. Pasco’s municipal code still caps the city at four cannabis retail licenses — all four currently filled, by Green2Go on Road 68, The Pacific Outpost on Court Street, and two Lucky Leaf Co. locations — and the council has not yet formally raised that cap. City staff now have to bring back an ordinance amendment lifting the limit to five, a process expected to take about two months and include its own public hearing before Compas can get a local business license. The state board, which has final licensing authority regardless of what the city decides, has already issued Compas a certificate indicating the Road 90 site meets required distance rules from schools and other restricted uses.
That certificate is precisely what split the council. Grimm, Milne and Cotta argued Pasco should decide whether to raise the cap at all before blessing any single applicant’s location — a sequencing objection, not strictly a location one. Cotta went further, telling colleagues cannabis is addictive and pointing to mental health and impaired-driving concerns as reasons to hold the line at four stores. All three warned that approving a fifth shop now all but guarantees pressure for a sixth or seventh later, since the city is also weighing a population-based formula — one additional retail license for every 30,000 residents — that would keep expanding the cap as Pasco keeps growing.
Supporters countered that the council’s job Tuesday was narrower: judge this applicant and this site, not relitigate whether Pasco should have cannabis retail at all. Backers noted the Road 90 address previously housed a cannabis store before Compas applied, and that the distance-rule certificate from the state should carry weight. Public comment leaned toward opposition, with residents citing the store’s proximity to Reynolds Middle School and arguing the city had signaled it would slow-walk further expansion before more community input — a promise some speakers said Tuesday’s vote broke.
The debate did not start Tuesday. Pasco banned cannabis retail outright until 2023, when the council lifted the ban and capped retail licenses at four. The cap question resurfaced this summer: the council held a workshop on expanding retail allowances on July 27, voted 4-3 on Aug. 3 to support Compas’s pending state application and begin ordinance revisions, took written public comment from Aug. 12 through Sept. 3, and held a public hearing on Sept. 8 at Pasco City Hall before Tuesday’s vote on the underlying ordinance question. The lineup on each vote has been consistent — the same four council members backing expansion, the same three opposing it.
What happens next isn’t fully in the city’s hands. Even after Pasco raises its cap to five, the Liquor and Cannabis Board still has to issue Compas an actual retail license before the Road 90 doors can open, a state process that runs on its own timeline. And the population-based cap formula still under discussion means Tuesday’s vote may not be the council’s last word on how many cannabis stores Pasco allows — something Grimm, Milne and Cotta made clear they expect to be back at the dais arguing again before long.
Sources: Tri-City Herald, Apple Valley News Now, Tri-City Herald
