Banks Say No to Marijuana Money, Legal or Not
SEATTLE — In his second-floor office above a hair salon in north Seattle, Ryan Kunkel is seated on a couch placing $1,000 bricks of cash — dozens of them — in a rumpled brown paper bag. When he finishes, he stashes the money in the trunk of his BMW and sets off on an adrenalized drive downtown, darting through traffic and nervously checking to see if anyone is following him.
Despite the air of criminality, there is nothing illicit in what Mr. Kunkel is doing. He co-owns five legal medical marijuana dispensaries, and on this day he is heading to the Washington State Department of Revenue to commit the ultimate in law-abiding acts: paying taxes. After about 25 minutes at the agency, Mr. Kunkel emerges with a receipt for $51,321.
“Carrying such large amounts of cash is a terrible risk that freaks me out a bit because there is the fear in my mind that the next car pulling up beside me could be the crew that hijacks us,” he said. “So, we have to play this never-ending shell game of different cars, different routes, different dates and different times.”
Legal marijuana merchants like Mr. Kunkel — mainly medical marijuana dispensaries but also, starting this year, shops that sell recreational marijuana in Colorado and Washington — are grappling with a pressing predicament: Their businesses are conducted almost entirely in cash because it is exceedingly difficult for them to open and maintain bank accounts, and thus accept credit cards.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/12/us/banks-say-no-to-marijuana-money-legal-or-not.html?_r=0
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If the banksters refuse to accept the money from such businesses, these businesses should start their own repositories and, because the pot thing is so popular, it may just be the catalyst that usurps the banksters death grip in us. It could be the start of what we the people need to happen! Maybe.
These guys are raking it in, they need to protect themselves and stating up their own finance institutions would be a good thing to invest in with all that cash.
