7A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2017
Pot retailers eye Cannon Beach
New stores dealing
with ownership,
design challenges
By BRENNA VISSER
The Daily Astorian
CANNON BEACH — As Five Zero
Trees eyes a soft opening in a few weeks ,
two other marijuana retailers have also
been working to establish a presence in
the city .
Oregrown Inc. co-founder Aviv Hadar
said the Bend-based retailer still has
intentions to open a store at the location
of Purple Moon Boutique on Hemlock
Street. He and the other founders of the
company have “struck a deal” with build-
ing owner Gene Cope to purchase the
property .
The team had its designs approved by
the Design Review Board this summer
and is in the process of obtaining a license
from the Oregon Liquor Control Com-
mission. The store opening will depend
on when Abbas Atwi, the owner of Pur-
ple Moon Boutique, is ready to go, Hadar
said.
“We’re going to let this play its natural
course,” Hadar said. “When we do some-
thing it’s very methodical. Every little tiny
nook and cranny needs to be perfect and
thought out. If it takes a year to get the
place open, so be it.”
Atwi declined to comment .
Daryl Bell’s plans to open a marijuana
store at 3115 S. Hemlock St. in Tolovana,
however, are stalled. The Design Review
Board rejected his application Thurs-
day because it lacked detail and failed to
address parking issues board members
cited two months ago at his last hearing.
The parking spaces are drawn onto
the city’s right of way, City Planner Mark
Barnes said, and would need to be rede-
signed in order to be in compliance.
“The parking situation at this loca-
tion is something that would need to be
addressed for anyone with commercial
use,” Barnes said.
Nancy Benson, operations manager
of PPC Holdings, represents Bell and
said that redesigning the parking layout
was too costly to do in the time allotted.
B ut they intend to re apply to the Design
Review Board in the future.
“We’re still hoping to open at that loca-
tion,” Benson said.
Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian
A Portland hotelier plans to take over the Astoria River-
walk Inn after prevailing in a lawsuit against the Port of
Astoria, which owns the hotel.
Marijuana: ‘We’re people who care’ Hotelier: Sonpatki
Continued from Page 1A
the community’s desire to keep
marijuana out of residential
areas. The building meets the
city code for a marijuana store
because the residents have
since moved out and the build-
ing is no longer mixed-use.
Despite this, the Ecola
Square Homeowners Associ-
ation, spearheaded by David
Frei, is still urging the city to
deny a business license to Five
Zero Trees, citing concerns
about the application process
and inconsistencies with the
comprehensive plan.
“By not informing the p lan-
ning d irector of the apartments
in the building, they led the
p lanning d irector into saying
that the property in question
was in fact compatible with the
city code and zoning when in
reality it was not,” Frei said in
an email.
After hearing Frei’s con-
cerns, city councilors decided
at an October work session they
wanted to take another look at
the comprehensive plan and put
the marijuana ordinance back
on the agenda. Interim City
Manager Jason Schermerhorn
said if any changes are made
out of these discussions about
the ordinance it would not
affect Five Zero Trees.
“I’d like to hear some kind
of response to the claims that
this is a violation of the compre-
hensive plan,” City Councilor
Mike Benefi eld said. “I’d like to
have a discussion to know what
our options are.”
Procedure
City Planner Mark Barnes
said he was not aware the prop-
erty at 140 S. Hemlock St. was
mixed-use when property own-
ers Bruce and Max Ritchie
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Work continues at the Five Zero Trees marijuana store in
Cannon Beach.
‘We want to work with
the community and prove
we won’t be a negative
infl uence on Cannon Beach.’
Case Van Dorne
co-owner of Five Zero Trees, who hopes to alleviate
the concerns residents have about his business
applied for a land use compat-
ibility statement last year.
The city does not have a reg-
istry of mixed-use buildings
or any formal way of keeping
track of them, Barnes said. The
property is listed under com-
mercial zoning, where retail is
allowed.
In Cannon Beach, there is no
code provision that addresses
how land use compatibility
statements are evaluated, so it is
not an inherent code violation if
there is false information on the
form. Because these forms are
submitted so early on the pro-
cess, the information serves as
a general road map subject to
changes, Barnes said.
The accountability comes
when retailers apply for a busi-
ness license. At that point, the
city will inspect the business
to make sure it is in accordance
with the city’s design standards,
zoning, building and other
regulations .
“We still have an opportu-
nity to enforce all provisions of
the code when they come for a
business license,” Barnes said.
Comprehensive plan
Frei argues approving
Five Zero Trees at the Hem-
lock location is a violation of
aspects of the comprehensive
plan, the city’s constitution for
development .
The comprehensive plan
promotes “small-scale, fami-
ly-owned” businesses, and Frei
said the fact Five Zero Trees
operates stores across Oregon
means it doesn’t meet the defi -
nition. Introducing a marijuana
store so close to a residential
area would also be out of step
with the plan’s goal to promote
a “unique character of down-
town,” he said.
The last major inconsistency
is the plan’s goal to “encour-
age the provision of perma-
nent housing in d owntown by
providing zoning incentives
for mixed-use structures which
incorporate housing,” he said.
“Because of code require-
ments regarding mixed use,
this business is taking away a
mixed-use building (with three
apartments) to make it into a
commercial building, eliminat-
ing the apartments in afford-
able-housing-challenged Can-
non Beach,” Frei said.
City councilors tentatively
are scheduled to review the
comprehensive plan and ordi-
nance in early December to
take a deeper look at Frei’s
arguments.
“I question whether this vio-
lates the comprehensive plan
or not,” City Councilor Nancy
McCarthy said. “I feel like
we’ve been shutting (the Ecola
Square Homeowners Associa-
tion) down.”
Case Van Dorne, the
co-owner of Five Zero Trees,
hopes to alleviate the concerns
residents have about his busi-
ness by the way he operates, he
said.
“We have families of our
own. I’ve been visiting Cannon
Beach for 42 years. We want to
work with the community and
prove we won’t be a negative
infl uence on Cannon Beach,”
he said.
Van Dorne has another Five
Zero Trees in Astoria, where
he said they are active in beach
clean ups, food drives and other
community service . He hopes to
do the same in Cannon Beach.
“We’re not a faceless busi-
ness. W e’re people who care,”
he said.
offered a cashier’s
check to satisfy
Smithart’s debts
Continued from Page 1A
recently closed his other
business, the Arc Arcade, and
moved to New York.
In the hearing Friday,
McIntosh concurred with
the jury that there was clear
and convincing evidence of
a contract breach.
Knight had argued that
terminating Smithart’s lease
before the deal with Son-
patki had closed was nec-
essary because of the run-
down state of the hotel,
bad operations, Smithart’s
growing debts and his pur-
suit of other suitors behind
Sonpatki’s back. Sonpatki
testifi ed about his efforts
to close the deal, including
his offering of a cashier’s
check to satisfy Smithart’s
debts.
“I did not fi nd the tes-
timony of Mr. Knight to
be particularly credible,”
McIntosh said Friday. “I
did fi nd the testimony of the
plaintiff to be credible.”
One of the most telling
points, she said, was how
Knight had led Sonpatki to
believe the Port would fi x
some incorrect documents
related to the contract,
while also communicat-
ing with Chester Trabucco,
a local developer compet-
ing for the hotel’s lease, and
directing the Port’s attor-
neys to stop working on the
documents. Trabucco even-
tually partnered with Asto-
ria native William Orr, a
brother-in-law of then-Port
Commissioner Stephen Ful-
ton, to form Hospitality
Ventures.
After terminating Smi-
thart’s lease, the Port kept
him in place as a short-term
operator and opened the
hotel to other suitors. The
Port Commission eventu-
ally awarded Hospitality
Ventures a short-term lease
in September 2015 over
several competitors, includ-
ing Param.
Orr, Trabucco and Hos-
pitality Ventures had orig-
inally been included as
co-defendants by Param
for intentionally interfering
with Sonpatki’s deal. They
were later removed from
the case after their lobbying
of the Port Commission was
found by Judge Philip Nel-
son to be protected activity.
In its opposition to the
specifi c performance claim,
the Port had argued that
Hospitality Ventures was
an innocent bystander that
would be harmed by giving
Param the lease. McIntosh
disagreed, saying Hospital-
ity Ventures knew the risk.
Param would also be tak-
ing a risk by assuming its
seven-year lease of the Riv-
erwalk Inn and then having
to negotiate with the Port
for a longer extension, she
said.
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