Board of Supervisors Considers Subsidizing Marijuana Cultivation

Your sales and property taxes at work to worsen your life!

On January 4, the Board of Supervisors will consider requests from the marijuana industry to revise the county’s tax structure. According to the information provided in the attached PowerPoint presentation (p. 10), the current cannabis program barely breaks even.  If cultivation and other taxes are lowered or eliminated, the county would effectively subsidize growers to plant marijuana using county general funds. Your sales and property taxes at work to worsen your life!  The greedy big cannabis corporations have been gaming the county’s multi-tenant permit system, and there is no reason to believe that they are “going broke.” Any responsible government agency, in evaluating such claims by a regulated industry, would demand to see accounting information and tax returns for the complaining companies. If marijuana cannot be cultivated at a profit in Sonoma County, why should residents endure the environmental and social problems of having it grown here at all?  At a recent supervisors hearing this autumn, Supervisor Susan Gorin publicly stated that she doesn’t necessarily believe that the growers have financial problems because all information the supervisors receive is self-serving complaints from an industry that wants to pay less taxes.  If any Sonoma County businesses needs tax relief, how about restaurants, hair salons, barbers and other industries who have been shut down or hobbled during Covid top comply with county health policies?

If diverting general fund money to subsidize cannabis cultivation instead of fixing county roads, improving law enforcement, and solving homeless problems annoys you, please contact Supervisor Gorin Susan.Gorin@sonoma-county.org.