Several students from Washington Middle School will cut the ribbon today on a drug prevention mural at a nearby bus stop.

The mural is a project of a school club called Huskies Against Drugs & Alcohol, which is named after the school’s mascot. The club was formed by two sixth graders, Alan Mendoza and Vieagus Ortega. The students collaborated with Dever Dunnett, an artist from Arts in Motion, and the three painted panels at a nearby bus stop shelter every Monday after school. Eighth grader Amira Abdel-Fattah later joined in the efforts.

The event will start with a student presentation in the school cafeteria, followed by the ribbon cutting at the bus stop, across the street from the school. The event begins at 3:15 p.m.

The latest development in the ongoing discussions regarding the implementation of I-502  involves the geographic dispersion of pot shops in Seattle.

We previously reported that the Washington State Liquor Control Board has made no decisions about whether they’ll allow clustering shop locations or make efforts to deliberately disperse them. That decision will affect the 23rd and Union corner’s potential to one day house multiple marijuana retail locations.

Yesterday, the Seattle City Council wrote to the Board encouraging it to incorporate geographic dispersion of marijuana retail licenses into their rules.

The letter states, in part:

The Liquor Control Board may not issue licenses for the sale of marijuana to businesses located less than 1,000 feet from an elementary or secondary school, playground, recreation center, child care center, public park, public transit center, library, or game arcade Where admission is not restricted to persons age 21 or older. These restrictions result in limited areas of Seattle being available for retail sales.

We are concerned with how these restrictions could interact with the proposed rules for marijuana retail licenses. New section WAC 314-55-081 (l) of the proposed rules for marijuana retail licenses states that should the number of eligible applications exceed the allotted amount of retail locations in a city (21 in Seattle), licenses Will be granted by lottery.

Should there be more than 21 eligible retail applications in Seattle, and the licenses are granted by lottery, this could potentially result in clustering of retail sales in a few areas, and other eligible areas having no retail locations.

Should a lottery result in a lack of geographic dispersion of retail locations within Seattle, this could make fulfilling the goals of I-502 more difficult.

We encourage you to incorporate consideration of geographic dispersion of retail licenses into
your rules.

You can download the full letter here.

The Seattle Times reported yesterday that eleven students at Garfield High School have been “banned” from school grounds while the recent hazing incident is under investigation.

Here’s more from the Times:

The Seattle school district has “banned” 11 Garfield High School students suspected of participating in a recent off-campus hazing incident until officials decide whether further discipline is warranted.

The students were told Friday not to return to class on Monday. Such “emergency expulsions” generally don’t last longer than two weeks, said Seattle Public Schools spokeswoman Teresa Wippel.

“It’s not an official disciplinary action. It just removes students from the school environment while the investigation is being conducted,” she said. “They are banned from coming on campus, and they also can’t participate in any sports or extracurricular activities while they’re emergency expelled. So they’re not supposed to have any contact with Garfield at all.”

Generally, Wippel said, “Ten days is the most that we would keep anybody out. And during that time, we do encourage the students to do their classwork at home and to keep on top of their work by corresponding with their teachers.”

Eight of the 11 students also have been identified by Seattle police as suspects in the incident, Wippel said.

Garfield Principal Ted Howard and a group of police officers broke up a large student gathering after school on Sept. 27 at the Washington Park Arboretum. They discovered underclassmen were being paddled, wearing diapers, having eggs thrown at them and shoe polish put on them.

Howard recognized some of the students’ faces, though others ran before he could identify them, and some were wearing disguises, Wippel said.

It’s not clear how many students were subjected to the hazing, but students and school officials have made clear that these types of incidents, known as “froshing,” are nothing new at the school. Wippel characterized it as a “tradition” at Garfield.

Student Body President Kellen Bryan confirmed that: It happens twice a year, he said — on Fridays before the homecoming and “purple and white” weekends. The student government doesn’t condone it. In fact, it provides alternatives, such as free barbecues, specifically to discourage students from taking part, Bryan said.

Another senior said it’s so pervasive in the school culture that some feel as though the only way to join clubs and meet upperclassmen is by first going through the “froshing.”

Wippel said Howard and other school officials are investigating each of the 11 students on a case-by-case basis to decide if further discipline is warranted.

Read the rest of the Times’ report here.

The state Liquor Control Board will hold a public hearing tonight from 6 to 8 p.m. to discuss its recent revisions to rules governing recreational marijuana businesses. The meeting will take place at Seattle City Hall‘s Bertha Knight Landes Room, at 600 4th Avenue.

The revised rules were released Sept. 4 and address issues with the original draft. The new version limits the amount of marijuana produced and details how many retailers will

Map showing potential pot shop locations in yellow, including area around the 23rd and Union intersection in the Central District.

be allowed across the state. This includes 334 proposed retail locations in Washington, with 21 slated for Seattle.

According to the I-502 website, “These rules reflect the Board’s stated goal of developing a tightly regulated and controlled market, and also demonstrate the agency’s initial thinking on how best to achieve that market. The Board is concerned with out-of-state diversion of product, traceability of products, responsible business practices, youth access and other public and consumer safety issues.”

As we’ve discussed on Central District News, the Board’s location restrictions limit retail shops to only a handful of areas in the city. Potential locations, per these rules, include the area around 23rd and Union, which has Central District neighbors raising both concerns and cheers at the possibility of pot shops here. The Board has made no decisions about whether they’ll allow clustering shop locations or make efforts to deliberately disperse them.

We’ll continue to cover the story as rules develop and we move closer to the reality of pot shops in Washington.