D.C. regulators will start inspecting marijuana gifting stores in September for health code, tax, and licensing violations, potentially increasing the pressure on businesses that some local legislators say have been skirting the law and undermining the city’s regulated medical marijuana dispensaries.
According to the Alcoholic Beverage Control Administration, which regulates medical marijuana sales in D.C. and would oversee recreational sales if and when they are legalized, a seemingly un-ironically named “Joint Cannabis Force” of various city agencies — including D.C. Health, the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, the Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department, and the Office of Tax and Revenue — will start inspecting the stores after a 30-day grace period that kicked off this month.
The inspectors will be looking to ensure brick-and-mortar vendors have the proper business licenses and certificates of occupancy, are compliant with the fire code, are paying the proper taxes, and are only giving away edibles and other manufactured products that are approved by the city and in compliance with food safety and hygiene laws.
The campaign targets so-called I-71 stores, named after the 2014 voter-approved initiative that legalized the possession, personal use, home-cultivation, and gifting of small amounts of marijuana — but not its sale. In recent years, growing number of gifting stores and services — which sell regular goods like art and clothing and then give customers gifts of marijuana — have appeared across D.C., serving as a de facto recreational marketplace for marijuana. They have also become more visible; what started as gifting events and delivery services has turned into traditional storefronts that anyone might assume are legal recreational marijuana dispensaries.
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