Anyone get a license yet ?

If so, how long did it take after the phone interview? Been almost 2 months ,no phone call yet. I will be surprised if I am up and running by August

No? How about even a phone interview??

Here's a copy of a letter I just sent to the WA LCB:

How many people DO you have making phone call interviews?? MY guess is 10 and that it will take 14 weeks to do them all
HOW many people will you have processing the paper work when it is sent in ??MY guess is ten and it will take 14 weeks to process them all .
HOW many people will you have making final inspections?? MY guess is 10 and it will take 14 weeks to do them all
Toss in 4 MORE weeks for counties and cities to whine, and it adds up to 46 weeks from Dec 20 before you will be done with the PRODUCERS! Or around Nov 1. Where the process is now a big black hole on your website. I'm betting you still don't even have the canopy part of it figured out yet. For all I know you haven't even STARTED the phone interviews yet
And I don't have a CLUE as to what position in line I am --and I figure if I miss the phone call it's to the back of the line I go
You talk about FRUSTRATING! Month after month after month of delay only to face months and months more. You ORGINALLY estimated I would be in business LAST JUNE!! AND of course the inevitable comeback is "hey WAY more applied than we could have EVER expected. How could we have possibly known?" Or the popular "it's all new and there's a learning curve here".Or maybe the ubiquitous " the FORMER bureaucrats had it all wrong but WE have it right now, honest!"
And so you geared up for less than 1000 applications and still are. And we have to add the plethora of inspections the local authorities are going to no doubt require that will add months more to the process
I figure at least a year more before I will get a dime in income- and then everybody will say this just ain't working for some Catch 22 reason or another and shut it all down
Of course you COULD hire 1000 people to process the damned applications-- and hire a Smart Guy to figure the canopy thingie out in an afternoon's worth of work-- and be done in three weeks- but that ain't gonna happen, now is it. "Budget problems" no doubt.
I almost forgot to mention dealing with local authority obstructionism hasn't been much fun either and STILL is not resolved
Frankly, I think EVERYBODY owes me an apology for letting this all string out for so damned long. You, the legislature, the county and the people who wrote up I502 so ambigously. TWO YEARS to get a store open? Yeah I know they will open in June, honest!

Here's how clueless the WA LCB is:


>>>In the event retail applications exceed the allocated amount for a given city or county, the Liquor Control Board will conduct a lottery witnessed by an independent third party. <<<
Ya think? 2200 applied for the 350 allowed stores. Gonna take a LONG time -- at least three months--to figure that all out and they won't even start the weeding out for the lottery process until the producer licensing is done. Meanwhile 2200 people just sit and wait.The LCB probably figures they are used to it by now, so no big deal

More cluelessness: They are allowing only 2 million square feet of canopy in WA.
1000 applied for Tier 3 licenses that can have up to 30,000 sq ft.That equates to 30 million sq ft of potential canopy
1000 applied for tier 2 for a potential of 10 million sq ft of canopy
So that's 40 million sq ft of potential canopy just for those two tiers
The Rules state that that 40 million must be reduced by a whopping 90%, even if they DOUBLE the allowed canopy to 4 million sq ft
That would mean a tier 3 dude would be allowed only a max of 3000 sq ft ,a tier 2 goes from 10,000 to 1000 sq ft max and a tier 1 from 2000 down to 200 sq ft max. Most could not make that work. How THAT is to be resolved remains to be seen but almost certainly there will have to be a lottery for producers

How does the LCB expect the retail stores to be operating by June if nobody is licensed to grow until at least March 1. More likely March 21 would be the absolute soonest a license could be issued due to the 3 week delay to allow for local jurisdiction objections. Make it April 1-- you need a final inspection. THEN you have to order thousands of dollars worth of lights and seeds that you waited on until you were certain you had a license. So it would be at least April 15-- probably June 1 on average--until you had even one seed sprouted
And it will take many months before all producer licenses are issued so harvest production won't be at 100% until at least Sept. So some stores MAY open by Aug but their stock will quickly be depleted, leaving employees hanging around twiddling their thumbs

The first producer license will be issued today. The LCB is having a press conference. Now the waiting for notification becomes even more difficult.

good luck all applicants!!

Two more were issued Friday. I hope they step up the pace.

Wait wait wait.16 months and counting. I still have not even gotten an appointment for a phone interview yet. No way I can set up shop before June 1-- more likely Aug 1-- or make ANY income until at least Sept. Meanwhile my start up funds are at risk.

This entire process from not knowing the rules, how long it will take, delay after delay, counties balking, Catch 22s et al has been very stressful to say the least. It's like driving in the dark with no lights to guide you

The people who get their license LAST-- and that would be lowly Tier 1 me- are at a disadvantgae because the first licensees are going to get established with the retail stores. So in order for me to compete I will have to start a damned price war and that is EXACTLY what I intend to do to get even. I'll drop the damned price to $50 an ounce if need be to get my foot in the door. Digest THAT Big Guys.YOU suffer from a price war far more than me since my cost of production is $13 an ounce. And YOUR production cost is what?

One would THINK, with all that tax revenue waiting to be collected, that the LCB would put 100 people into processing applications and have them work overtime and on Saturdays for 2 whole months, max
But apparently it simply has not dawned on the Bureaucratic Drones-I think the non starters are waiting for input from Queen Bee Inslee. Until then it's 4 applications processed per day, max. Lets see 7000 /4 =1750 working days-- about 350 weeks

ONE good bit of news as far as clarity goes.The issue of strict county zoning and mortoriums comes to a head on Monday afternoon as a bill banning pot bans comes up for a vote. Its passage is deemed likely since they are bribing local officials to go along with a pool of pot tax money to share with them if they go along with the plan.If so all the ordinances dealing with pot become null and void IF they treat pot any differenltly than any other "agricultural use" business

A strict reading of Kitsap's pre I 502 zoning law would allow the production of marijauna in rural areas-- just as it does a wholesale nursery--but not the processing of it. So someone living in a rural area could not hold both licenses legally under existing zoning laws
And since a producer can ONLY sell to a processor, and ONLY a processor can sell to a retail store-hence the need for a dual license-the rural production licensee would only get half of what he could get if he could sell directly to a retail store by not being able to have a dual license due to zoning restrictions. A Catch 22 waiting to happen.
They REALLY need to change the Rule so that a producer CAN sell directly to a retail store, no need for a dual license. Save the processing licenses for the dudes making brownies

Man iam so close but my darn agent went on maternity leave and her supervisor leaves for a two week vacation just like come on guys, just need the supervisor to go over my shiz and have my final inspection, hoping its on near the 1st of april

Hey they are knocking them out at a rate of almost 15 a week now!. At that rate they will issue the last license around Jan 2016-- be patient!

allot of incomplete applications are delaying the process.

Now that the wslcb is SUPPOSE to release the lottery results on May 2nd, how do you guys think the retail operators are going to choose who's bud they will be selling in the shops? Is it gonna be a wine and dine type scenario?

Welcome to the twilight zone of licensed MJ production. Just to make you guys feel better, up here in Canada the wait so far can be 10 months plus (Regs went into effect June 19,2013). For our company it's been 8 months already. Thus far only 13 outfits have been licensed with some 700 in the pipe. )(P.S. we're talking production here as no retail operations permitted but only sales by producers directly via online, mail order or phone).

The way they have it set up is so stupid.....if you are just a grower/producer alls you do is grow, you don't harvest/process or have to trim the product that's the processors job.... to process & package the material for the retailer.

or

does the grower have to hang dry the product then it goes to the processor? how far does the grower have to process the marijuana??? A grower does not trim. Where's the line being drawn??

....."ALL / EVERY" processor has to be located in the same restricted zones as the retailers....that is why most growers CAN NOT be processors.....zoning restrictions

so all growers/producers will have to transport their product to the processors location

or

does the processor have to transport the product? Who pays for the armored transport?

About 2/3 of all applications have already been denied. Washington will be lucky to open 1 retail outlet this year the way they are snailing along

Washington State legalized the same time as Colorado.....Colorado is already making millions due the fact that they have a Continental monopoly on recreational marijuana.

Imagine having only 1 State in the USA to purchase your alcohol from legally

still setting up for a tear 2 production/processor LCB guy says we should have it in the bag as soon as we get our 8 foot fence up and the security system in. should have plants in by june 1st. but at this rate i dont think there will be much competition for shelf space. i think it will all fly off the shelf so fast with so few grows will be up and running. my hardest thing to wrap my head around so far is the rules surrounding getting new plants after the first 15 day start up period. its worded very poorly

"After this fifteen day time frame expires, a producer may only start plants from seed or create clones from a marijuana plant located physically on their licensed premises,or purchase marijuana seeds, clones, or plants from another licensed producer."

the way the first part read it seems almost like you could start any seed but only clone from one of your plants. but the second part seems to contradict this stating that the seeds have to come from another licensed producer. im assuming licensed producer is someone else with a production license in WA state but if that's the case then how are you going to get new strains in the market place? what happens when the cannabis cup roles through and the new crowns are given. everyone will want that strain but the established producers cant get it.

im hoping for some clarification on this and this is not the only part of the guidelines that are poorly worded. i don't want to do something wrong and get my license pulled over a typo.

Sounds like a short window to allow for initial importation of genetics not tracked from seed.