Following tumultuous public comment the week prior, the WSLCB Board and staff planned to focus on draft revisions to the social equity licensing program to incorporate lessons learned.
Here’s a look at cannabis-related policymaking events on the calendar in the week ahead.
Monday May 13th
At publication time, no cannabis-related policymaking events were scheduled.
Tuesday May 14th
WSLCB - Board Caucus
On Tuesday at 10am PT, the weekly Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB) Board Caucus was scheduled to recur.
- [ Event Details ]
- During the WSLCB Board Meeting on Wednesday May 8th, several members of the public offered comments on the draft revision to the social equity program application scoring rubric which had been publicly introduced during the prior board meeting on April 24th. Commentary was pointedly critical of the draft changes, particularly the expansion of qualifying criteria for past cannabis convictions to include any drug offense.
- At the close of that meeting, Chair David Postman responded and indicated his intention to have Licensing staff visit with the board during the caucus on Tuesday to discuss the basis for the draft changes: “So next Tuesday, I think what we'll do is we'll have an opportunity for the board to have a conversation with staff and we should really hone in on these proposed changes. We did get the briefing last time, but I think it's worth doing it again, and go through and show why, why those suggestions were made. And then we can discuss whether or not we think those suggestions should remain in there or not. But there was a reason for it, so let's go back to that reason and have that discussed here. I think that'd be my suggestion and I'll ask staff to get us ready for that” (audio - 4m, video - TVW).
Wednesday May 15th
WSLCB - Focus Group - SB 5080 Implementation
On Wednesday at 3pm PT, Policy and Rules staff planned to host a focus group on the WSLCB social equity program rulemaking project.
- [ Event Details, Rulemaking Project ]
- The announcement for the focus group indicated the “Session's primary focus” would include “Feedback on the draft scoring rubric criteria, point allocation, and documentation to demonstrate eligibility.”
- During the Executive Management Team (EMT) meeting on Wednesday May 8th, Director of Policy and External Affairs Justin Nordhorn noted that he planned to lead the stakeholder engagement sessions and described his goals: “We're going to be doing it pretty methodically, I think, just to make sure that we can try to encourage the constructive feedback on the actual rule language instead of a broader, you know, policy areas that may not impact how the language is being crafted and developed. So we really want to have feedback on does this, like on the rubric for example, does this parameter work? Does it make sense and if not, why, and how can it be improved? And we're gonna go one by one through these things, so we don't have to get into a whole bunch of side conversations because we really have a limited amount of time to try to get this feedback” (audio - 2m, video - TVW).
- Interested parties would have another opportunity to engage with WSLCB Policy and Rules staff on the SB 5080 rulemaking project on Wednesday May 22nd, including an in-person option hosted at Highline College.
Thursday May 16th
At publication time, no cannabis-related policymaking events were scheduled.
Friday May 17th
At publication time, no cannabis-related policymaking events were scheduled.