PORT TOWNSEND — Security Services Northwest gained a little ground Friday when motions filed by Jefferson County to stop all operations at the company’s Gardiner-area location were dismissed.
“I’m not going to expand the injunction. In fact, I’m going to dismiss the case,” said Jefferson County Superior Court Judge Craddock Verser in his decision on Friday.
Security Services recently appealed in Kitsap County Superior Court a Jefferson County hearing examiner’s decision that effectively shut down the 18-year-old business on Discovery Bay.
Verser said that an expanded injunction in Jefferson County would only complicate matters in the Kitsap County appeal.
Verser’s dismissal allows Security Services, at least for the time being, to operate its armored truck, K-9 and security alarm divisions.
“It means SSNW doesn’t have to fire everyone,” said John Devlin, Security Services’ Seattle-based attorney.
“If this order had been granted, that would be it.”
Examiner’s decision cited
During the motions trial, Jefferson County’s Seattle attorney Mark Johnsen pointed to Hearing Examiner Irv Berteig’s Jan. 20 decision for grounds that expanded injunctions on Security Services’ operations should be upheld by Jefferson County Superior Court.
Berteig’s ruling found that Security Services was not a nonconforming use that should be grandfathered because the company was in place before county zoning in the area.
“The county’s obligation when it’s told a business is not following the law is to tell them to stop what they’re doing,” said Johnsen.
Devlin assured Verser that Security Services has stopped all shooting activity on the 3,700-acre Gunstone property, which is what prompted neighbors’ noise complaints against the business last summer.