Cannabis dispensary owners seek city business fee reductions
The purchase of a real time center to support the city’s FLOCK license plate reader cameras and the sale of a small piece of city land was the main subject of the August 21, San Jacinto City Council meeting. The council also heard an appeal from cannabis dispensary owners to lower the taxes and fees to prevent them from closing their businesses.
The latter issue by the cannabis dispensary owners was made during public comments on non-agenda items that evening, limited to three minutes which could not be responded to by the council members that evening.
The city contracted San Jacinto Sheriff’s Department and requested $91,500 to implement a Real Time Crime Center (RTCC) to provide their deputies with the ability to capitalize on a wide and expanding range of technologies for efficient and effective policing.
The FLOCK cameras in the city allow law enforcement officers to respond quickly, or even immediately, to crimes in progress or to those that recently occurred. The technologies available in a Real Time Crime Center allow law enforcement agencies and officers to respond to crime events more efficiently, more deliberately, with improved operational intelligence, and with a proactive emphasis on officer, citizen, and community safety. The center can deliver more critical and timely information to the appropriate constituencies (the officers or detectives on-scene, commanders in the field, law enforcement executives, private citizens, etc.).
The council members, after determining from the sheriff’s office, the center would not interfere with the current civil rights laws on privacy, approved the request in a 5 to 0 vote.
The council, acting as the San Jacinto Housing Authority authorized a purchase and sale agreement of a small piece of land at 239 W. 7th Street for $75,000. The purchase was made to Nagasamudra S. Ashok, M.D., Inc. doing business as San Jacinto Family & Urgent Care who operates a medical clinic on the adjacent property. Dr. Ashok is making the purchase to expand his clinic into a community clinic, which would provide free medical services as a licensed community health center.
During the public comment section of the meeting four owners of cannabis dispensaries took the microphone to appeal to the council and the city to lower its current cannabis sales taxes and fees that threaten to force the closure of their businesses. The four dispensaries are Budology, Blazed Utopia, Reefer Shop and Planet Buds who, according to the city ordinances, charge 15 cents for every dollar in sales and other city, county and state taxes taking more than 50 cents from every dollar in their gross receipts.
While the dispensaries have been operating for a number of years in the city, with recent increasing inflations and new, more costly laws, their cost of continuing operations of legal dispensaries in the city is becoming unsustainable according to the owners.
Fatima Rahman, the Budology owner and owner of other businesses in San Jacinto before the council said, “we cannot continue our businesses because of the city ordinances.” (Concerning the operation of a cannabis dispensary) She said unless the city can change their ordinances soon, the closing of their businesses could cost the city nearly $3 million in revenue.
She added the neighboring city of Hemet and other cities in the state are cutting their cannabis dispensary business operating fees. California itself charges the dispensaries 15% of every dollar they receive in retail sales. Adding up all San Jacintos cannabis dispensary operational fees the city charges are higher than most other cities in the state, according to Rahman. She pleaded for the council to work with the dispensary owners to reduce some of the fees so they could stay in the city.
Because of the Brown Act the council could not immediately respond to the dispensary owners request that evening.
Tony Ault can be reached via email at tault@reedermedia.com.
