Without much ado, city OKs first retail pot shop permit

By SAM DeGRAVE

Wednesday, May 11, 2016 1:28pm

The Planning Commission approved the city's first ever conditional use permit for a marijuana retail shop during its regular meeting Tuesday night. The shop is the apparel store for Rainforest Farms LLC, seen here at its location on Second Street in downtown Juneau where the Heritage Coffee used to be.

Without objection — and with very little discussion — the Planning Commission approved the first conditional use permit for a marijuana retail shop in the capital city during its regular meeting Tuesday night.

The shop is the retail arm of Rainforest Farms LLC, a cannabis cultivation company run by Juneau brothers James and Giono Barrett. It will be located in the storefront where Heritage Coffee used to be on Second Street downtown.

“I’m glad it went well,” James Barrett told the Empire Wednesday. “Now we’re really looking forward to serving Juneau.”

[Greenlighted: Juneau brothers move forward with marijuana, show business.]

The permit is the second of a total of 12 permits and licenses that Rainforest Farms needs to become fully operational, he said. The brothers plan to grow, process and sell their own products, which means they’ll need to do a lot more paperwork. In addition to city and state business licenses, the two will have to secure another CUP in order to process marijuana products in their retail shop. They hope to have that within the next few weeks.

“My job is going to be pretty intensive over the summer with licensing,” James Barrett said.

Rainforest Farms secured a CUP for its growing facility in Lemon Creek at the April 12 Planning Commission meeting.

On Tuesday night, commissioner Michael LeVine pulled the item from the consent agenda to make sure that the Assembly’s most recent marijuana ordinance, establishing the regulations for the industry, would not affect the commission’s ability to approve or deny the permit.

“This is the first one of these that’s come before us, and we had a lively debate when we considered the first cultivation facility,” LeVine said.

Chrissy Steadman, a planner with the city’s Community Development Center, assured LeVine that the Assembly hadn’t made any changes to the ordinance, which passed through the commission early this year, that would affect retail stores.

Commissioner Bill Peters then moved to approve the permit, and his motion passed without objection.

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