Pot permit denial absurd

Without due cause, Pend Oreille County’s single retail pot applicant was denied a conditional use permit.

Our planning commission’s arbitrary discrimination against a valid permit application was so blatant as to offend a person of ordinary business sensibilities.

As an advocate for local rural economic development, I fail to understand why the powers that be are forcing a local entrepreneur with limited financial means to delay producing revenue and go through the hoops of exhausting his administrative remedies prior to suing our poor county for unfair infliction of economic damages and attorney’s fees and costs.

All this fuss over something more sophisticated or wealthy non-residents will probably pick up on once our local applicant is put through the grist mill. Meanwhile, our consumers are forced to illegally purchase from the underground, or to travel elsewhere to spend their money. This is just the opposite of simple rural economic development and production of needed tax revenues.

Duane Schofield

Cusick