EVERETT — The Snohomish County Council voted against a code change Wednesday that would have allowed a second pot shop in Clearview.

Currently, cannabis retailers cannot open within 10,000 feet (just under 2 miles) of one another in the Clearview Rural Commercial zone. The code change would have lowered the buffer to 2,500 feet.

Council member Sam Low proposed an amendment to the ordinance Wednesday, which replaced the word “marijuana” with “cannabis,” and removed all changes to the 10,000-foot buffer. Low’s amendment passed 3-2, with council members Jared Mead, Nate Nehring and Low voting for and council members Strom Peterson and Megan Dunn voting against.

The Clearview commercial zone covers 115 acres split into two parts along Highway 9, according to a 2019 County Planning Commission staff report. More than 3,500 people live in the unincorporated, census-designated area called Clearview, 10 miles southeast of Everett.

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, 10,000 feet only allows one marijuana retailer in Clearview.

A 2,500-foot buffer between cannabis shops matches Everett code, a staff report for the proposed ordinance says.

“What evidence demonstrates that 10,000 feet provides public safety benefit that 2,500 feet does not?” Patrick Gahan said during the Wednesday meeting. He was hoping to open his cannabis shop, Hangar 420, in Clearview. “I ask you to consider the cost of keeping this business closed … Allowing this location to open means jobs, economic activity and additional tax revenue.”

However, some Clearview residents have been fighting against multiple cannabis shops on their stretch of Highway 9 for more than 10 years.

“I think the Clearview community has been very clear on how we do not need another dispensary in our community,” Clearview resident Thomas Huffacker said during public comment. “The CRC has a very unique experience of having many marijuana dispensaries in proximity to each other in the past.”

In 2014, eight dispensaries existed between Maltby to the south and Cathcart to the north, four of which were on 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 said.

The county council at the time established a moratorium on new cannabis retail in the Clearview Rural Commercial zone, but grandfathered in the four existing shops. Over time, three closed down and a single shop called The Kushery remained.

In 2021, the moratorium prevented The Kushery owner Josh Shade from moving his store from 180th Street Southeast and Highway 9 to a building at 164th Street Southeast. Shade approached council member Mead — who represents the Clearview area alongside Low — to find a way to relocate.

In 2023, the county council lifted the moratorium and established the 10,000-foot buffer. The ordinance creating the buffer passed unanimously with the same five current council members, Mead said in a July interview.

“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 the 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 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.

In early 2025, Gahan attempted to open the Clearview Hanger 420. The Kushery leadership complained and brought the county’s attention to the new store, said Josh Estes, a spokesperson for The Kushery at the time.

“I signed the five-year lease in December 2024, received the keys on January 1, 2025, and immediately began rehabilitating and cleaning up a property that had operated as a cannabis retailer for roughly a decade,” Gahan said in a Wednesday email. “Only after that work was completely finished in February did the county inform my landlord and me that the code had changed and the 10,000-foot separation requirement prevented us from opening.”

Hangar 420 also has locations outside Lynnwood, Snohomish and Everett.

Despite warnings from the county, Gahan opened the Clearview store on June 30 to keep the cannabis business license valid, he said.

Hangar 420 took over the license of a closed Lynnwood store called Green Lady marijuana. Gahan moved the license to the Clearview site in March 2025. If a dispensary does not operate for 12 months, the state license expires, and the Hangar 420 license was set to expire in July, Gahan said.

The county sued to close the business, and on July 18, Superior Court Judge Cindy Larsen granted an injunction that temporarily paused Hangar 420 from opening the Clearview shop while the lawsuit is ongoing.

If the county council approved the buffer change, the injunction would have lifted.

After the Wednesday meeting, the Clearview Community Association secretary, Lori McConnell, expressed her relief in an interview.

“It sounds like it’s over, so it’s good. We’ve gone through this a lot. I’m hopeful that the Clearview Community Association will be able to have meetings again,” she said. “I feel some sympathy for Patrick Gahan … I know he’s put a lot of money into that shop, and I wish he would have stopped back in March of 2025.

He could have saved himself a lot of money,” McConnell added.

In his email, Gahan said he was deeply disappointed, particularly with Nehring’s vote.

“After numerous meetings with him, I understood that he would support the Executive’s code amendment if it went through the necessary review process,” Gahan said. “Hearing Nate characterize my actions as knowingly disregarding county requirements was especially disappointing because that does not accurately describe what happened.”

Before the vote, Nehring said he supports revisiting regulations if they don’t make sense or if they have unintended consequences.

“But I have serious concerns about changing the rules after the fact to accommodate an operator who proceeded despite being advised that the proposed use violated county code,” he said. “There has to be a level playing field with rules that are known, are understood and are consistently applied.”

Gahan said he would not have continued investing time and money “had I understood that completing the requested process would still leave me without the support I believed I had.”

However, he is not giving up, Gahan said.

“I will continue gathering signatures, building support, and encouraging residents and businesses to contact the Council,” he said.

Taylor Scott Richmond: 425-339-3046; taylor.richmond@heraldnet.com; Bluesky: @btayokay.bsky.social