POLITICS 75
economy, which has seen sharp declines in revenue in the cut flower market due to competition from South America. The Agriculture Commissioner’s quotes have made me chuckle this past year: "Indoor operations and crop are the highest quality crop, contrary to what they say in Humboldt,” said San Mateo
County Agricultural Commissioner Fred Crowder. I don’t know about you, but what I heard him say was that San Mateo County can grow better weed than Humboldt! I can’t wait to ask him that one day. They too are deliberating on how best to tackle and implement a fair tax incentive.
If all of these Counties continue with their momentum as planned, we could see 46% of the state's Counties with commercial cannabis regulations in place by the end of this year.
Now, because nothing really ever is as it may appear, let us dig in further to some of these counties to see if some of them are truly open for business or if they just have an ordinance on the books with no real traction occurring.
Marin County earned the title from industry leaders this year as “The NIMBY Capitol of California” when they passed an ordinance allowing multiple dispensaries, accepted applications for those businesses and then held town hall meetings where residents showed up in force to protest this decision ultimately causing County staff to reject all of the applications that had been submitted. For those of you that don’t know what a NIMBY is they are the “Not In My Back Yard” folks. Adult Use legalization passed overwhelmingly in Marin by 73% leaving intelligent deduction to lead to the conclusion that these residents think it should be legal in theory, but that people should have to continue driving to the nearest regulated county to get access to that legal use.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has directed County departments to develop cannabis regulations for the County's unincorporated areas. The County has begun a road show of public meetings to field questions and assess concerns from unincorporated community members on such issues as: Where can commercial cannabis businesses locate? What rules