No one’s blowing smoke, Washington state’s first drive-through pot dispensary has just opened in Auburn.

Called Joint Rivers – a play on words that also honors the White and Green rivers – look for the shop in the new building behind the Muckleshoot Bingo Hall at 2771 Auburn Way S.

“We are grateful and excited to provide great cannabis products with stellar customer service by the most educated and professional team in the Pacific Northwest,” General Manager Audra Jaggers said Tuesday.

Although the grand opening is at least two months off, Jagger added, the store is ready to welcome one and all to Vendors’ Day on July 18, offering 30 vendors, a steel-drum band, food trucks and interactive stations.

Calls to the Muckleshoot Tribe were not returned in time for this article.

As a sovereign nation, the tribe processed the application, performed its own building permit review and handled all other planning and development matters related to the business. The City of Auburn had no part in the process.

Indeed, the news surprised even city officials.

“We didn’t know that that building was going in except that it has utility service from Auburn, so we service the water line; that’s how we found out they were going to build a building,” said Jeff Tate, interim planning director for the City of Auburn. “Generally, we don’t know what is going to go in a building there until signs go up advertising what it is.”

Also, the rules that the state has in place and Auburn’s own rules pertaining to cannabis dispensaries within city limits do not apply on the reservation property. Auburn’s rules limit the number of retail pot businesses, producers and processors in Auburn to two. But should any of those businesses leave or close, it’ll be back to two again. The two are The Stashbox, at 3108 A St. SE, and The Evergreen Market, at 402 16th St. NE.

Individual reservations like Muckleshoot develop a compact with the state – much like the gambling compacts – so each reservation’s compact could, in theory, be different from the rest.

“The state and the tribe will share all the tax revenues, one government to another,” Tate said.

Although the drive-through is a first for the Washington cannabis market, the first to open in the nation was the Cannabis Marketplace in Las Vegas, Nev.

Workers bustle about Joint Rivers, the state’s first drive-through cannabis dispensary, behind the Muckleshoot Bingo Hall. ROBERT WHALE, Auburn Reporter