Morning Press: Fireworks, marijuana sales, triplets

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In case you missed it, here are some of the top stories of the week

Vancouver to explore fireworks ban

After last weekend’s Fourth of July mayhem, the Vancouver City Council wants to explore options for banning fireworks in the city.

On Monday night, Councilor Alishia Topper broached the idea of holding a citizens’ advisory vote in November regarding a fireworks ban. Topper said the council has received numerous emails from residents wanting a fireworks ban, concerned about drought conditions and the fire marshal’s lack of authority to declare an emergency ban on fireworks.

“This is an option the citizens should have, to tell us if they want it or not,” Topper said.

However, other council members didn’t want to leave a public safety decision in the hands of voters.

“Fourth of July was a war zone around here. … It went crazy and stayed that way nonstop till midnight,” Councilor Jack Burkman said. “We’ve actually reached the point now where it’s time to ban.”

Councilor Anne McEnerny-Ogle agreed, saying, “I, too, am ready to have that discussion about banning this.”

Read more about the council’s fireworks discussion.

1st year a success for pot shops

In a challenging first year for Washington’s groundbreaking recreational marijuana industry, two booming Vancouver pot shops have come out on top, selling more product than any other retailers in the state.

This weekend marks the one-year anniversary for those stores. Main Street Marijuana, Vancouver’s first pot shop, celebrated its first birthday on Thursday, and New Vansterdam, which opened two days later, will reach that milestone come Saturday.

Together, the two stores have generated more than $20 million in sales in their first year, accounting for nearly 8 percent of the entire industry’s revenue statewide. In that time, they’ve also raised nearly $5 million in excise tax revenue.

But it hasn’t been easy, as the cash-only stores have weathered supply shortages, price gouging and competition from the black market along the way. Meanwhile, a burdensome three-tiered tax structure left many in the industry failing to make a profit.

Read more about the first year of marijuana sales.

Forensic accountant departs county panel, blasts officials

A well-known and respected forensic accountant has resigned from the Clark County Audit Oversight Committee after she claimed to have been used as a “political pawn” by Auditor Greg Kimsey and Councilor David Madore.

Tiffany Couch, founder of accounting firm Acuity Forensics, submitted her resignation Tuesday night following what she describes as several months of being used by both Republican elected officials to serve their political agendas regarding the county’s fee waiver program.

“It does not appear that my education, professional experience or background are the basis for my appointment,” she wrote in the letter addressed to Councilor Jeanne Stewart, who is on the oversight committee. “Instead, it is apparent that both Mr. Kimsey and Commissioner Madore wish to use me to support whatever political initiative they are currently supporting — seemingly to spite one another.”

Couch, known locally for her critical reports of the Columbia River Crossing, was appointed to the oversight committee in November with Kimsey’s encouragement.

Learn more about Couch’s reasons for resigning.

Cafe Yumm opens in east Vancouver

Add another choice to the ever-growing list of locations to buy healthy fast-food meals: Café Yumm, in the Mill Plain Crossing shopping center at 500 S.E. 192nd Ave.

The restaurant, which opened June 18, is the first local franchise of a small Eugene, Ore.-based chain that markets a healthy menu that relies heavily on locally grown organic ingredients while marketing social consciousness almost as much as its menu.

Café Yumm has just 18 locations, including one other Washington location, in Seattle, and six others in the Portland metropolitan area. Its menu features trademarked Yumm! Bowls with names like Hot N’ Jazzy and Yumm! Baby. One sandwich is called the Deli Lama and there’s a salad named the Secret Asian Man. (Remember that 1960s Johnny Rivers song, “Secret Agent Man”?). Most popular is the simply named Original Yummi Bowl, offered in three sizes priced from $5.25 to $7.25, says Liz Smith, owner of the new Vancouver franchise as well as the Portland restaurant near Portland State University. The company says that more than 50 percent of the food served at Café Yumm is certified organic.

Learn more about the new restaurant.

Young Clark County woman is plumb inspiring

CAMAS — Teeth gripping a plastic pipe fitting, Smokey Fritz climbed a ladder inside a house under construction. Fritz joined two lengths of flexible plastic pipe with the fitting, pulled a tool from her back pocket and crimped the pipe.

“If you don’t crimp a fitting right, it can leak,” said the 23-year-old apprentice plumber. “Water, out of everything else in the house, is the most damaging.”

Then she yelled to a co-worker: “Washer box is done!”

Fritz is likely the only female working as a plumber in Clark County. Nationwide, about 9,000 women plumbers, pipelayers, pipefitters and steamfitters comprise only 1.6 percent of the 564,000 workers in the field, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Although an American woman became a certified master plumber in 1951 — 64 years ago— the fields of plumbing and the other trades are still dominated by men.

The percentage of women in nontraditional construction work is about 2 to 3 percent, said Cynthia Polly Payne, spokeswoman for Washington Women in Trades, based in Seattle. In some government operations, such as Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, the percentage of women in trades is much higher, about 16 percent.

Read more about Fritz’s work as a plumber.

Couple beat odds with triplets

Kadie and David Warner knew they had a narrow window of time to have a baby.

Kadie had recently received a high-dose of radioactive iodine to fight thyroid cancer. She had to wait a year to see if another dose would be necessary. Her doctors told her one dose lowers the odds of conceiving; two doses would make getting pregnant even tougher.

So Kadie’s doctor gave the Vancouver couple the go-ahead to try for a baby in the interim.

One month later, Kadie learned she was pregnant. The following month, Kadie and David learned they were having not one baby, but three.

The couple who were told they may have a hard time conceiving suddenly were the parents-to-be of spontaneous triplets.

“It was two weeks of head-spinning shock,” Kadie said. “We really couldn’t even believe it for a while.”

Learn more about the Warner’s special delivery.