Yesterday, January 13, 2023, the Washington State Liquor and Hashish Board (“LCB”) launched an interactive mapping device for figuring out whether or not individuals meet have lived in Disproportionately Impacted Areas (“DIA”)–considered one of three eligibility standards for the forthcoming Social Fairness in Hashish (“SEIC”) program licensing. The map will be discovered by a hyperlink on the LCB’s web site, or here.
Washington Social Fairness in Hashish Program
As we wrote about right here, the SEIC program, slated to be rolled out someday this 12 months, will re-purpose round 40 retail hashish dispensary licenses which were revoked or deserted and reissue them to qualifying candidates. To qualify, a WA resident should maintain no less than 51% of every social fairness retail license applicant and the individual or individuals making up the applicant should meet no less than two of the next {qualifications}:
- the applicant has lived in a Disproportionately Affect Space (“DIA”) in WA for at least 5 years between 1980 and 2010;
- the applicant or a member of the family of the applicant has been arrested or convicted of a hashish offense; or
- the applicant’s family earnings within the 12 months previous to submitting the applying was lower than the median family earnings throughout the state of Washington.
What are “Disproportionately Impacted Areas”?
DIA’s had been conceptualized and outlined by the WA legislature. To qualify as a DIA, a person census tract should be within the “prime 20% on all the following indicators:
- excessive poverty fee;
- excessive fee of participation in income-based federal packages;
- Excessive fee of unemployment; and
- Excessive fee of convictions.”
When utilizing the mapping device, you will need to maintain the eligibility standards in thoughts: an applicant should have lived in a DIA for no less than 5 years between 1980 and 2010. The mapping device tells customers whether or not a particular census tract qualifies as a DIA for the next particular person years —1980, 1990, 2000, and 2010. The LCB’s web site states “To satisfy this qualification, you could have resided within the space on the time it was thought-about a disproportionately impacted space for at least 5 years.” Sadly, the mapping device doesn’t inform us for the way lengthy after one of many offered years any given census tract remained a DIA.
Figuring out eligibility; points with the mapping device
As a result of it’s removed from clear, are candidates to deduce that if a census tract is proven to have been a DIA in 1980 and 1990, that it remained a DIA for all the intervening years as nicely? As famous above, the mapping device solely states whether or not or not a census tract was a DIA within the particular person years listed. This raises a number of questions on applicant eligibility underneath completely different circumstances however all we all know right now is that after functions are submitted, “The third-party contractor will use this map and the data offered by candidates to find out in case you lived in a disproportionately impacted space and for the way lengthy.”
Think about if an applicant lived in a census tract proven to be a DIA in 1990 by the mapping device from January 1990 to December 1995, however the mapping device reveals that the census tract was not a DIA in 2000. The 5 12 months minimal eligibility interval can be clearly established in that case. However, as a result of the mapping device doesn’t inform us for the way lengthy between 1990 and 2000 the census tract was a DIA, we’re left not figuring out whether or not the standards is glad with any certainty.
Many candidates counting on DIA eligibility as considered one of their three eligibility standards for an SEIC license won’t know whether or not they qualify till the third-party contractor responds to the applying. That is only a easy instance to point out the problems with the mapping device and the necessity for steerage from the LCB. Individuals’s lives are hardly ever as neat and easy as the instance above and the mapping device’s efficacy for serving to individuals decide DIA eligibility is proscribed at greatest.
Attempt it out and get in touch with the LCB
Potential SEIC candidates ought to use the device to no less than get a way for whether or not they qualify based mostly on the place they lived throughout 1980 and 2010, no matter the mapping device’s points. If it’s not clear whether or not you qualify, the very best plan of action can be to contact the LCB with the query and request steerage. We’ll be following developments in Washington’s SEIC program and writing about them right here.