Possible relief in sight for pot shop owners to operate as cashless businesses

Pot shop employees on edge after more armed robberies

A bill introduced by Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer would decriminalize marijuana and would allow for shops to have card payment options-- so they aren't targets with having so much cash on hand.

WASHINGTON - A new bill promises relief for pot shop business owners as they propose to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level, which would allow the shops to use cashless payments like debit and credit cards. Pot shops are easy targets for robberies because current law allows them to operate as cash-only businesses.

Senate Majority Leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer, tweeted, "It is past time to end the federal cannabis prohibition" and "For far too long, the federal prohibition on cannabis and the War on Drugs have been a war on people, and particularly people of color."

Schumer introduced the "The Cannabis Administration & Opportunity Act," which would legalize cannabis nationwide, expunge records of some cannabis offenders and create a grant program for small businesses.

Logan Bowers, the co-owner of Hashtag Cannabis, whose store has been robbed at gunpoint twice, is a supporter of the bill.

"If we finally have access to credit card transactions, that just makes us a less appealing target and then criminals will hopefully go somewhere else," Bowers said.

Euphorium in Lynnwood was robbed at gunpoint as recently as Thursday.

Kristian Briggs, manager of Euphorium, says cash flow is an issue.

"Anytime you have a heavy amount of cash on premises, that's always a target," Briggs said.

Cannabis has been approved for recreational use in 19 states, and 37 more have legalized it medically.

"We have lived in a country for years that continually thought that marijuana was a substance that is harmful," Briggs said.

Marijuana is on the controlled substances list, along with heroin, LSD, peyote and ecstasy.

"That is a misplaced artifact of the drug war," Bowers said. "But it means we can't get access to regular banking for most things, it makes the taxes that we pay really screwy, which makes it very difficult to run the business. The combination of those things ends up meaning that we just have more physical cash moving through a cannabis business than a normal retail business."

A draft of the bill circulated more than a year ago, after more than 1,800 comments, the bill is now 296 pages. The bill pushes to take marijuana off the controlled substances list, 180 days after its enactment.

More importantly, Section 706 has business owners and managers feeling optimistic. The shift would then grant businesses federal banking, giving customers the opportunity to tap or swipe a card to pay.

"As a business owner, the worst most stressful days for us are when we get the call that we've been robbed," Bowers said. "That's just terrifying for the team that encounters that and so, so we're excited to have more tools in the toolbox. This has been a long time coming. I hope Congress actually moves it through this time because we really need it. It'll feel a lot better when we have more safety for our team."

The act also proposes:

Federal employers could no longer drug test employees for cannabis (with exceptions like law enforcement and national security)
Grants to hire law enforcement
Expanding medical access to veterans through the VA
Taxes that would go towards grant programs to fund non-profits, job training and helping reintegrate inmates into society after incarceration

The bill could make progress as soon as July 26.

However, even if passed it’s unclear if President Biden will sign it, as he has opposed legalizing marijuana in the past.