Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good lord, who cares?

Kids under 21 aren't even allowed to buy pot, why does it matter if it's being sold to legal, consenting adults in the vicinity?

If stores are selling to underage kids, that's a completely separate problem and can be dealt with separately without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Nobody flips their lid over restaurants serving cocktails or supermarkets selling beer near schools, why would pot be any different?

I care. My kids go to school there. I don’t want the school to have to divert scarce resources from learning to expanded supervision and security at dismissal if this application is approved. I don't want my kids to no longer be able to play outside or go outside for lunch during the school day. I don’t want to deal with double parked cars and couriers picking up delivery orders. I don’t want more traffic on that block leading to more frustrated drivers and increasing the risk that kids get hit crossing the cross walks on the way to the metro. I don’t want the allure of cannabis around impressionable young kids.

+ 1,000,000. I also don’t really want my 11 year old to have to navigate the sidewalk on her own through a bunch of people standing around smoking pot or just loitering on the sidewalk. We all see what happens outside of these facilities across the city, regardless of whether they are a “medical” dispensary or a gifting shop.

The degree to which so many of you have zero qualms about the risks of normalizing drug use among kids is scary. There have been countless studies over the years about how kids who are consistently exposed to others using alcohol, drugs and cigarettes are FAR more likely to engage in those activities themselves. And we’re not just talking about high school kids who are going to be seeing this activity every day. The majority of the students at the school range in age from 10-13.

Anyone who claims this is no big deal clearly doesn’t have kids.

Anonymous wrote:Good lord, who cares?

Kids under 21 aren't even allowed to buy pot, why does it matter if it's being sold to legal, consenting adults in the vicinity?

If stores are selling to underage kids, that's a completely separate problem and can be dealt with separately without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Nobody flips their lid over restaurants serving cocktails or supermarkets selling beer near schools, why would pot be any different?

The ABCA Board explained yesterday that only establishments with liquor licenses this close to schools were grandfathered in or were there first before schools chose to open. So that’s a false comparison. There are also more avenues to protest alcohol licenses than cannabis licenses.

Anonymous wrote:Good lord, who cares?

Kids under 21 aren't even allowed to buy pot, why does it matter if it's being sold to legal, consenting adults in the vicinity?

If stores are selling to underage kids, that's a completely separate problem and can be dealt with separately without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

It’s you. You’re the problem.

Anonymous wrote:Good lord, who cares?

Kids under 21 aren't even allowed to buy pot, why does it matter if it's being sold to legal, consenting adults in the vicinity?

If stores are selling to underage kids, that's a completely separate problem and can be dealt with separately without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Nobody flips their lid over restaurants serving cocktails or supermarkets selling beer near schools, why would pot be any different?

I care. My kids go to school there. I don’t want the school to have to divert scarce resources from learning to expanded supervision and security at dismissal if this application is approved. I don't want my kids to no longer be able to play outside or go outside for lunch during the school day. I don’t want to deal with double parked cars and couriers picking up delivery orders. I don’t want more traffic on that block leading to more frustrated drivers and increasing the risk that kids get hit crossing the cross walks on the way to the metro. I don’t want the allure of cannabis around impressionable young kids.

Anonymous wrote:Good lord, who cares?

Kids under 21 aren't even allowed to buy pot, why does it matter if it's being sold to legal, consenting adults in the vicinity?

If stores are selling to underage kids, that's a completely separate problem and can be dealt with separately without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Nobody flips their lid over restaurants serving cocktails or supermarkets selling beer near schools, why would pot be any different?

1) The stores are NOT selling pot. They are gifting pot to customers who buy something else in an end-run around DC's pot legalization rules (which allow for legal possession and use of certain amounts of pot but do not permit the legal sale of it, unless it's medical marijuana, which is actually regulated in DC.

2) These loophole "gifting" shops attract a large volume of patrons with drug issues, who line up outside the shops until they open, since often supplies of the pot "gifts" are limited. These crowds often remain even after the pot has been distributed, to smoke on the sidewalk and hang out. Often other illegal behaviors ensue, including public consumption of alcohol and other illegal drugs, fighting, public urination and defamation, panhandling and harassing passerby, and passing out on the sidewalk.

3) The stores do not have to sell to kids to make this pot accessible to kids, because again, they aren't selling pot at all. They are giving it away. Some of them have extremely lax practices in terms of checking IDs, and in other situations, the person coming into procure the pot can easily give it to whomever they want once they leave the shop, including minors. Also the behavior outside these shops can lead to pot, alcohol, and other drugs being dropped and lying around, because so many of these people are high and just DGAF.

The gifting shops need to be SHUT DOWN. I don't care what Congress says, there has to be a way to do this as a municipality -- they pose an immediate threat to public health and safety. The cops have shut down some of the shops for obvious violations (stuff like not collect or paying taxes on their sales, giving pot to minors, and other illegal behavior), but there are now too many of the shops to parse between the "good" ones and the "bad" ones. They are a net negative. And the fact that several strips in DC where these shops have proliferated (including H Street NE) also have close proximity to elementary schools and a large volume of children and families just makes this more important AND easier to legally justify.

The Council should be going to bat for the people of this city over this issue, not rolling over and crying that their hands are tied. The issue should not have been allowed to proceed for as long as it has. The Council should be UNITED in closing down the pot gifting shops and should not only be passing this emergency litigation, they and Bowser should be actively pressing the issue in the press and forcing it with Congressional reps. It's a health and safety issue! Congresspeople live in DC.

This makes me angry on about 8 different levels. Half the council actually had its act together for once and the other half is sitting around with their thumbs up they're a$$es acting like this isn't even an important issue. I'm so sick of this stupid city at this point.

The applicant cares. He said when asked that he wouldn’t want one across the street from his kid’s’ school. And yet he’s still applying for a license across from a school. He said he didn’t realize. But the law does not allow him to change location now. The window is closed. So even though he wouldn’t want it across from his kids’ school he’s still pushing forward with this application because he can’t change location under the transition legislation. Allen and Pinto tried to fix this issue with their emergency legislation. Half of the Council voted against it. And so either there will be a cannabis retailer near a school or the applicants application be denied. If the emergency legislation had been passed then there would have been a middle ground.

Anonymous wrote:Good lord, who cares?

Kids under 21 aren't even allowed to buy pot, why does it matter if it's being sold to legal, consenting adults in the vicinity?

If stores are selling to underage kids, that's a completely separate problem and can be dealt with separately without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Nobody flips their lid over restaurants serving cocktails or supermarkets selling beer near schools, why would pot be any different?

Anonymous wrote:Good lord, who cares?

Kids under 21 aren't even allowed to buy pot, why does it matter if it's being sold to legal, consenting adults in the vicinity?

If stores are selling to underage kids, that's a completely separate problem and can be dealt with separately without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Nobody flips their lid over restaurants serving cocktails or supermarkets selling beer near schools, why would pot be any different?

Because restaurants and groceries don't normally have customers passed out on the sidewalk in front of them?

Good lord, who cares?

Kids under 21 aren't even allowed to buy pot, why does it matter if it's being sold to legal, consenting adults in the vicinity?

If stores are selling to underage kids, that's a completely separate problem and can be dealt with separately without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Nobody flips their lid over restaurants serving cocktails or supermarkets selling beer near schools, why would pot be any different?

Anonymous wrote:Mendelson, McDuffie and Robert White all need to go. Mendelson didn’t want to change the rules part way through and called the legislation a mess, which it is and which is why the emergency legislation is needed. Robert White thought that the ANC got to approve these licenses and so if they didn’t want it then they could just object and the Council should let them do their jobs, showing that he has no understanding of the process. McDuffie said that the Council’s hands are tied by Congress, except they’re not really and the Council could have passed this emergency legislation if they wanted to. McDuffie also said the Council should not usurp ABCA’s authority. Except ABCA applies the laws that the Council passes and so passing this emergency legislation wouldn’t have usurped any authority it would just have helped the Board to do there job.

It’s a complete shitshow. It’s so insulting to have “leaders” who can’t even bother to understand the legislative process and their authority, or base their decisions in reality. This is an easy decision for the council and the ABCA board. It’s common sense that having a cannabis dispensary across the street from a school where hundreds of kids are 13 and under. There’s so much wrong in the city that this could’ve been an easy way for the council and the ABCA board to do right by the communities and the city’s families that they are supposed to serve.

Mendelson, McDuffie and Robert White all need to go. Mendelson didn’t want to change the rules part way through and called the legislation a mess, which it is and which is why the emergency legislation is needed. Robert White thought that the ANC got to approve these licenses and so if they didn’t want it then they could just object and the Council should let them do their jobs, showing that he has no understanding of the process. McDuffie said that the Council’s hands are tied by Congress, except they’re not really and the Council could have passed this emergency legislation if they wanted to. McDuffie also said the Council should not usurp ABCA’s authority. Except ABCA applies the laws that the Council passes and so passing this emergency legislation wouldn’t have usurped any authority it would just have helped the Board to do there job.

I also support ranked choice voting for the reasons listed above. We need more moderate (aka reasonable) voices.

I've supported Mendelsohn in the past --even given him money -- but I will not do so again. He has lost his compass. It is a horrible idea to allow dispensaries near schools, and I will not support anyone who can't see that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I give up. We are moving. Just hope this mentality doesn't affect the whole of America and there are still some pockets of sanity to escape to.

You should not be allowed to leave the shithole you created by voting for leftist scum.

+1.

I'm a moderate Republican so, even as a DC native, DC has never felt like a place where my local vote created anything. I am supporting ranked voting before I go, though I still haven't determined if the Density Bros will use it to maneuver to further power. They are wily. But it should open up pathways for moderate candidates too.

Not to worry, the Density Bros come from both sides of the political aisle. One of their lead DC operatives even worked as Trump's national polling advisor.

Anonymous wrote:Two years ago ANC 3F was tripping over themselves trying to desperately get a dispensary located across the street from UDC. Really? Across from a college whose mission is to try and lift kids out of poverty? What’s wrong with these clowns.

Maybe it was about "welcoming and inclusion" in Ward 3.

Nadeau is worthless. Absolutely worthless. We should ask for every penny the taxpayers have paid her be refunded when she leaves DC.