LAUGHTER HELPS HEAL Event raises thousands for man facing cancer. Page 14
COMMENTARY | Let’s pause and communicate about marijuana at K2 [8] SPORTS | Grapplers and hoopsters move along in postseason play. [16-17]
REMODEL NEARS END The Vashon Library is set to reopen soon. Page 5
BEACHCOMBER VASHON-MAURY ISLAND
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2014
Vol. 59, No. 08
www.vashonbeachcomber.com
Pot business pushes forward, goes public Company trying to purchase K2 holds meeting
Meeting tonight on proposal that would allow pot at K2 By NATALIE MARTIN Staff Writer
Tonight county representatives will take comments on a proposed change to the Vashon Town Plan that would allow Bakkhos Holding to move forward in its effort to grow marijuana and manufacture edible marijuana products at the K2 building. King County announced it was considering the change on Feb. 7, less than three weeks after Bakkhos Holding announced its plans to purchase the K2
By NATALIE MARTIN Staff Writer
The company that hopes to grow marijuana and make THC-infused edibles in Vashon’s largest commercial building continued to press its campaign last week, part of its ongoing effort to get the land use changes it needs to move forward on its ambitious plans. Dan Anglin, a spokesman for Bakkhos Holding, held a public meeting last Wednesday, where he described a communityfriendly company that would create jobs, be inconspicuous in the former K2 building and contribute to life on the island. Vashon, he noted, would be an integral part of the company’s success. Should Bakkhos Holding’s plans come to fruition, the company would purchase and renovate the K2 building,
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Natalie Martin Photo (top), Courtesy Photo (right)
Dan Anglin, above, speaks at a public meeting last week. Another company representative and Keith Putman, the K2 building’s architect, are pictured in the background. The company plans to make marijuana-infused candy, pictured at right, and other food products. enabling it to grow marijuana in 90,000 feet of the structure and manufacture EdiPure-brand marijuanainfused candy and other
food in other parts of it. Ultimately, he said, the company hopes to see its products go nationwide.
property. Two proposed amendments to the Vashon Town Plan stem from a conflict between a marijuana ordinance passed by the King County Council last year and the town plan, which is folded into the King County Comprehensive Plan. The ordinance the council passed in December allows legal marijuana businesses to set up shop in parts of unincorporated King County zoned as Community Business and Industrial. King County officials later realized, however, that a special business district that Vashon’s Town Plan Committee created in 1996 prevents marijuana business in much of the island’s core. The business district, which creates a zoning overlay in parts of Vashon town, Center and at the K2 building, has many permitted uses outlined by the creators of the SEE MEETING, 12
SEE K2, 20
Local writer releases new novel set in Burton By JULI GOETZ MORSER Staff Writer
Courtesy Photo
Ask novelist Will North where his ideas come from and he’ll answer “Toledo.” Not because he’s from Toledo or is particularly fond of that city, he just thinks the word itself is funny. Humor aside, North believes ideas for his novels come from a deep place, an inner geography about which the writer is only dimly aware — until they start talking. Take Edwinna Rutherford, the elderly, sharp-tongued but big-hearted clairvoyant in North’s latest novel, “Season’s End.” North claims she came out of nowhere and bossed him around until, he likes to say, he took dictation. Rutherford is a favorite character of North’s, and he’ll introduce the complete cast of his new book at a reading at 6 p.m. Friday at the Vashon Bookshop. An award-winning writer of more than
a dozen nonfiction books North, who grew up in Yonkers, New York, spent much of his early career as a ghostwriter, penning books for the likes of Bill Clinton and Al Gore, among others. He also wrote a series of off-the-beaten-track guidebooks to Britain. Fiction held no appeal for this writer until the day it crashed into his world. “Fiction just showed up — like a gatecrasher or unexpected guest,” North said, “and then the stories kept coming.” He wrote his first novel, “The Long Walk Home,” at a blistering pace — 90 days — and never looked back. His second novel, “Water, Stone, Heart,” began with one idea and two characters. But on page three, a young girl appeared, a character he said he never imagined and who had the gall to try to take over his story. Curious thing is she succeeded, much to this author’s delight. Ask North where she came from, and he’ll say Toledo.
Toledo plays a staring role in North’s third and latest novel, “Season’s End,” but this time it shares the stage with a small, rural island in the Pacific Northwest unabashedly called by its rightful name: Vashon. It’s also one of two places in the world — Cornwall, England, being the other — that North calls home. Five years ago, friends invited North to the island for a weeklong stay at their home on the Burton Peninsula. North said he drove off the ferry, onto Vashon, and within minutes knew he was home. Here was a community where children safely road their bikes without helicopter parents worrying away their fun, where the pace of life seemed slow enough for friendliness and patience to flourish and where natural beauty infused most every vantage point. Once again, North never looked SEE NOVEL, 15