[420 Girl]

Todd Madison and Aaron Panagoss have spent nearly a year selling medical marijuana out of their homes. The next logical step, they figured, was to open up a store.

But the duos dream of opening Botanical Urban Dispensary Service, their cleverly-titled pot shop, has now been seriously harshed by the Mountlake Terrace city officials who rejected their business application.

The city says that the law doesn't allow for storefront shops. Madison and Panagoss, meanwhile, say they got a license from the state and are threatening to sue if not allowed to open. Unfortunately for everyone involved, both parties have a rightful claim to the high ground.

That's because when Washington approved Initiative 692 in 1998, it left lots of room for gray. The law allows for physicians to authorize pot for chronic pain and other ailments. But it's so broadly written that even legit users get busted and some sick people have no practical way of growing their own buds.

The result is non-profit dispensaries that sometimes operate within the law and sometimes operate with its tacit, if not overt, consent. And then there's guys like Madison and Panagoss who, they say, wanted to open the state's first for-profit pot shop.

The real loser in all of this: the lady who owns the building where Madison and Panagoss wanted to put their store. As she told HeraldNet, the recession has already claimed two of her tenants. And she, like everyone else right now, could really use the dough.


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