Clearview residents oppose second neighborhood pot shop
Published 1:30 am Friday, July 10, 2026
EVERETT — Clearview residents spoke against a citizen-initiated amendment to county code that would allow a second marijuana retailer in their unincorporated neighborhood.
During public comment, about 20 people spoke against the amendment. Seven people spoke in favor; all were associated with the potential new cannabis shop.
For the nearly 3,500 people who live in Clearview, it’s the latest round in a fight that’s stretched for more than 10 years. Clearview is a census-designated place totaling about 4 square miles, 10 miles southeast of Everett on Highway 9.
“I don’t want another cannabis shop in the area where I live,” Clearview resident Lori McConnell said during public comment. “I have a simple belief. People need to know about changes happening in their community and be given a fair opportunity to have their say bout those changes.’
McConnell is also the secretary of the Clearview Community Association, a volunteer organization that works to improve the area’s public safety and support business development for the benefit of residents.
“We don’t want to be Highway 99,” she said in a Friday interview. “I know Clearview isn’t the prettiest strip of Highway 9, but it, you know, what’s there is fairly crime-free. People use the services that are there.”
There doesn’t need to be another marijuana store in Clearview because there are already others easily accessible to the area, resident Peter Grosvenor said during the Wednesday meeting.
“We currently have several dispensaries close by,” he said. “In fact, we can get to a second dispensary faster than we can get to a second grocery store or a second pharmacy.”
Residents like Clearview’s rural nature, McConnell said, especially because it’s so close to the densely populated areas of Snohomish and King counties.
In 2014, eight dispensaries existed between Maltby to the south and Cathcart to the north, four of which were on Clearview’s stretch of Highway 9. The area became known as “The Green Mile,” and residents founded the Clearview Community Association to make their desire for fewer cannabis shops known, the association’s website says.
Eventually, the County Council disallowed marijuana retail in the Clearview Rural Commercial zone, but the four that existed were grandfathered in. Over time, three closed down and a shop called The Kushery was the only remaining.
In 2021, The Kushery owner Josh Shade wanted to move from its location at 180th Street Southeast and Highway 9 to a building at 164th Street Southeast, but the moratorium prevented it. Shade approached County Council member Jared Mead, who represents the Clearview residents along with council member Sam Low, to find a way to allow the store to relocate.
‘Preserve a sense of ruralness’
In 2023, the County Council lifted the moratorium on marijuana shops in the Clearview Rural Commercial zone and created a buffer so cannabis retailers could not open within 10,000 feet, or just under two miles, of one another. The Clearview commercial zone covers 115 acres split into two parts along Highway 9, according to a County Planning Commission staff report from 2019.
“Council staff evaluated multiple policy options to modernize the code while preserving those longstanding rural protections in a way that would be legally defensible and apply consistently across Snohomish County,” Mead said in an interview. “Rather than creating a Clearview-specific solution, the recommendation that ultimately emerged was a countywide 10,000-foot separation for all rural and resource zones.”
The ordinance creating the 10,000-foot buffer passed unanimously with the same five current council members, Mead said.
The two parts of the Clearview commercial zone span 8,270 feet, or 1.57 miles, according to a 2022 email from Ryan Countryman, a Snohomish County Council staff person at the time the 10,000-foot buffer was being considered.
In other words, the buffer only allows one marijuana retailer in Clearview.
The Clearview Rural Commercial zone is unique because it implements a Growth Management Act concept called a “local area of more intensive rural development,” or LAMIRD. While the Growth Management Act restricts development to cities, LAMIRDs allow low-density development in some pre-existing developed rural areas.
Any commercial development or redevelopment in LAMIRDs must be designed to serve the existing and projected rural population, consistent with the area’s existing character, the state law says.
The Clearview Rural Commercial zone is the only LAMIRD in Snohomish County.
“The Clearview commercial area, it’s a traffic area that people want to put their shops in,” McConnell said Friday. “The LAMIRD has managed to preserve a sense of ruralness.”
Clearview residents have discussed becoming a city, McConnell said, but she is not confident it will happen.
“My personal feeling is we could end all this stuff if we just incorporated,” she said. “There’s also people here who don’t, and they own a lot of land comparatively to the suburbs, but they don’t really have much money. So tax increases are always a hot topic.”
The citizen-initiated amendment would reduce the 10,000-foot buffer to 5,000 feet and cap the number of cannabis stores allowed within the Clearview Rural Commercial zone at two.
The amendment was initiated by J&L Properties of Washington, which owns the property at 180th Street Southeast where The Kushery used to be located. Another cannabis shop hopes to open there, 1.1 miles away from The Kushery.
In early 2025, Patrick Gahan, owner of Hangar 420, attempted to open a Clearview location. Leadership from The Kushery complained, bringing the county’s attention to the new store’s existence, said Josh Estes, a spokesperson for The Kushery, at the time.
“I leased the building very beginning of January 2025, only after I completely finished the building did Josh file a complaint with Snohomish county,” Gahan wrote in an email to The Herald. “Basically Josh drove by saw us working and called the county that we in violation.”
Hangar 420 also has locations outside Lynnwood, Snohomish and Everett.
Despite warnings from the county, Gahan opened the Clearview Hangar 420 on June 30 to make sure the business’ marijuana license didn’t expire, he said.
Hangar 420 took over the license of a closed Lynnwood store called Green Lady Marijuana. The business moved the license to the Clearview site in March 2025.
If a dispensary does not operate for 12 months, the state license expires. The Clearview Hangar 420 license was set to expire in July, Gahan said.
A few days after Hangar 420 opened, the county sued to close the business. On July 18, Superior Court Judge Cindy Larsen granted an injunction that temporarily pauses Hangar 420’s ability to serve Clearview customers while the lawsuit is ongoing.
If the buffer amendment is approved, it would also lift Hangar 420’s injunction.
‘We have two separate proposals’
On Wednesday, the County Council was to vote on whether to send the citizen-initiated amendment to the Planning and Development Services department for review. However, they instead voted unanimously to send the motion back to the council’s Planning and Community Development Committee.
“We have two separate proposals,” County Council member Nate Nehring said during the meeting. “So my hope would be that we can get these…on the same track or timeline, so we’re not taking two separate votes on what is essentially the same item.”
County Executive Dave Somers also initiated a code change to reduce the cannabis buffer zone in all unincorporated areas to 2,500 feet, matching other business buffers. This ordinance has not reached the County Council yet.
Sending the citizen-initiated amendment back to committee allows the council to postpone a public hearing on the motion until the county-initiated amendment reaches them, Nehring said.
Approving Somers’ amendment would also lift Hangar 420’s injunction.
This ongoing story was first reported by the Snohomish Tribune.
Taylor Scott Richmond: 425-339-3046; taylor.richmond@heraldnet.com; X: @BTayOkay
