Finally, San Diego is receiving grant money from the state as part of a program designed to help cities boost their local cannabis industries.
The Southern California city announced last month that it was receiving $880,000 from the California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) as part of a statewide grant program aimed at strengthening property rights in the regulated marijuana market.
Under this initiative, California has provided millions of dollars to cities across the state through its cannabis stock grant programs.
All major cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Oakland have joined the grant program. last spring, San Francisco officials announced They received $4.5 million from the state of California to fund a cannabis stock grant program.
But the $880,000 gift last month was the first of its kind given to San Diego.
That’s because San Diego hasn’t Create their own grant program until last yearwhich, like San Diego Union-Tribune male“several years after other big cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, and Long Beach.”
“Obtaining this important funding source is vital to the launch of our cannabis equity program,” Lara Gates, deputy director of the San Diego Cannabis Business Division, said in the city’s announcement. “These dollars will provide a solid foundation for applicants for initial cannabis stocks to gain a solid foothold in the legal cannabis market.”
In its grant announcement last month, the city said that “the funds will support residents seeking to enter the legal cannabis industry in San Diego by granting funding to cover permit and licensing fees and associated startup real estate costs while providing access to the cannabis industry workforce.”
The money “will be distributed locally, supporting the state’s efforts to promote economic justice for residents and communities affected by the cannabis ban,” the city said in the announcement, adding that the grants “will help prospective business owners pay licensing and licensing fees, access education and training, and receive assistance with renting real estate.” To entrepreneurship in various sectors that support the local cannabis business, which includes “finance, marketing, advertising, and legal services, among others.”
When determining qualifications for the grant program, the City of San Diego found “the biggest obstacles to entering the industry are lack of capital, lack of training, problems finding suitable locations, and complex government regulations,” According to the Union Tribune.
“Historic enforcement of drug laws has produced profound disparities in business ownership, wages and mass incarceration within the criminal justice system for African American/Black, Latino and Native American/Indigenous communities,” Kim Desmond, San Diego’s chief of race and equity, said in the month’s announcement. the past. “Acknowledgment of historical institutional racism and systemic injustice is central to understanding disparities in the cannabis industry.”
The money awarded to San Diego “represents the seventh-largest grant, after Oakland and Los Angeles at about $2 million each, plus Sacramento, San Francisco, and Long Beach at $1.5 million each and Humboldt County at $1.2 million,” according to the Union Tribune.
City of San Diego He said It “was among 16 cities and counties across the state to receive $15 million in grants, funded by tax revenue generated from recreational cannabis sales statewide.”
In valuation of cannabis stocks in the past year The city of San Diego found that black and Latino residents account for nearly 50% of all cannabis arrests since 2015, even though they make up only 29% of the city’s population.
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