Half-baked Oakland pot plan a buzzkill
Oakland is stuck on the road to the marijuana gold rush. Here’s how it stalled. In May, the Oakland City Council unanimously approved laws to regulate the city’s medical cannabis industry, while promising to revisit the debate over a tacked-on equity program that industry leaders think will bottleneck the city’s pot trade.
The equity program reserves half of the pot-business permits for applicants who were jailed on marijuana convictions in Oakland in the last decade or who have lived for at least two years in a designated East Oakland police beat where marijuana arrests have been highly concentrated. To obtain a permit, the applicant must own at least half of a proposed business.
There’s more. Now council members Desley Brooks, Larry Reid and Noel Gallo want to amend the pot laws to require all cannabis businesses in Oakland, as well as anyone leasing property to a pot business, to fork over 25 percent of their profits.
Wait, there’s more. The businesses would also have to give one seat on their board of directors to the city. The plan, which went before the council’s Public Safety Committee on Tuesday, is now in limbo.
Brooks has argued that the war on drugs has disproportionately affected people of
color and that those arrested and convicted of pot-related crime deserve a cut in the emerging cannabis industry.
“If you’re serious about equity, show us you’re willing to share this big pie,” Brooks said in May to pot business owners challenging her equity plan.
The money from the pot profits would fund council district initiatives, loans for local entrepreneurs, beautification projects and three job training programs run by people connected to council members.
I agree with Brooks that the multibilliondollar industry isn’t inclusive, and black and Latino entrepreneurs need to be included going forward.
But the equity program is a half-baked plan.
The permit restrictions would discourage business. They create a roadblock that would force business owners to take a detour and find a better place to make and sell marijuana-infused cookies, candies and essential oils.
Why would anyone want to hand 50 percent of their business ownership to a person simply because that person fits a profile defined by some city rule?
And on top of that, what business entrepreneurs would give up 25 percent of their profits to a city — especially without knowing exactly how the money would be used?
Oakland is one of my favorite places in the world, but it’s not that cool.
Why not open shop in Richmond, San Leandro, Hayward, Berkeley, Emeryville or San Francisco? Because with a policy like that in Oakland, the pot business will go — and their customers certainly will follow.
The result would be that Oakland loses out on what could be a massive source of tax revenue.
Marijuana is already big business. If the legalization trend continues — it’s on California’s Nov. 8 ballot — there will be a windfall of jobs and tax revenue.
Under the proposed law, every new pot business would have to hire half of its workforce from Oakland and onefourth from the city’s economically depressed areas.
Hundreds of businesses could emerge, creating long-term jobs. Employees would eat and hang out at local restaurants and bars, contributing to an economic revival.
Oakland has long been supportive of the cannabis industry, fighting to keep the federal government’s hands off of the Harborside Health Center, the country’s biggest medical marijuana dispensary.
If Oakland shuns the pot industry now, the pot industry will shun Oakland.
The city’s pot ordinances were designed to bring it in line with state laws by 2018, so there’s still time to weed out the problems.