Oakland pot shop hopeful offered trip to city official
A businessman seeking to win one of the coveted cannabis dispensary permits in Oakland tried to give a free European trip to the city official in charge of the permit process.
The official, Greg Minor, said he reported the offer from Dorian Gray to his supervisor, City Administrator Sabrina Landreth, after trying to explain to Gray why the offer was inappropriate.
“He offered to pay for me to go to Spain, ostensibly to visit some Spanish cannabis business partners of his because they had lots of knowledge to share,” Minor said. “I obviously declined.”
City ethics laws prohibit anyone from offering a city employee or political candidate a gift “when it is reasonably foreseeable that the public servant or candidate could be influenced by the gift in the performance of an official act.” The Oakland Government Ethics Act also bars anyone doing business or seeking to do business with the city from offering gifts to public servants.
The overture happened several weeks ago, as the city began deciding who would receive this year’s eight marijuana dispensary permits, which allow the holder to open brickand-mortar shops in the historically cannabisfriendly city. Gray is among 116 applicants for the lucrative opportunity.
Gray, in an interview with The Chronicle, defended his offer to Minor. The trip Gray described would have included tours of Spain’s cannabis consumption lounges, Minor said.
“That was an opportunity to help the city of Oakland out to be exposed to what’s going on,” Gray said. “You’ve got another country that’s already been doing this a lot longer, and to be able to get it right would be the most profound thing that one can do.”
Public records list Gray as an executive in 2003 with Oakland’s Waterfront Development and Construction Inc., which is now dissolved. He was also chairman of a Richmond firm called Quality Development Co.
Minor said that Gray showed up at his 11th floor office at City Hall and told him he was referred by City Council President Larry Reid.
Reid said Gray — whom he described as an acquaintance and developer — came to his office inquiring about cannabis permits about a month ago. Reid said that after a 10-minute conversation, he told Gray to talk to Minor, but did not know about what happened next, including the proposed trip.
Minor said Gray showed him a photo of a Spanish cannabis lounge they could visit, and that he asked Gray why they would need to go abroad, when they could just go to San Francisco and see the same thing.
Prospective cannabis shop owners have broadly voiced concerns about the potential for improper political influence, Minor said, given how few dispensary permits are available. But he said the selection process is cut-and-dried.
Of the eight permits that will be awarded in the coming week, at least four will go to “equity” applicants. Equity status is conferred on people who make below a certain threshold of income and have lived for 10 of the past 20 years in designated neighborhoods that previously saw a high number of cannabis-related arrests. Someone below the income threshold can also qualify if he or she was convicted of a cannabis-related crime in Oakland in the past two decades.
The program is designed as a form of reparations for the War on Drugs, to equalize the industry for historically disadvantaged groups such as African Americans.
Other applicants were reviewed using a pointbased system and winners chosen by a panel of city staff: Minor, Huey Dang of the bureau of revenue management, Jacqueline Larrainzar of the department of race and equity, and Keira Williams of the department of economic and workforce development.
The equity winners will be chosen by a public drawing next week in City Hall, Minor said.
There’s no limit in the city on non-dispensary cannabis businesses, such as delivery or labtesting operations, as long as certain requirements are met.
Under Oakland’s cannabis ordinance, at least half of such permits are awarded to equity applicants. The next in line for those permits are general applicants who are serving as incubators for equity applicants by giving them free rent and at least 1,000 square feet of space.
Thus far, the city hasn’t awarded any permits to general applicants who are not involved in the program, because of how many equity and incubator applicants there are at the front of the queue.
As of last week, nearly 600 prospective businesses had applied for a non-dispensary cannabis permit, and about 80 had received one. Many have yet to complete required paperwork.