California Legislature Okays $100 Mln Grant For Smooth Cannabis Business Licensing

The California State Legislature has approved of a one-time $100 million grant to cities and counties in the state to help them restructure the process of cannabis business licensing. This move was done based on the recommendations of California Governor Gavin Newsom.

As per reports, the $100 million grant will be divided among the 17 cities and counties, which has already given marijuana business licenses to companies. The release of the above-mentioned grant will help convert the licenses from “provisional” permits to “annual” licenses.

Reports say that over 80 percent of the licensed marijuana companies operating in the state of California have temporary provisional licenses, most of which have not been authorized by legislators beyond 2021. This is why licensing is such a big problem in California and the Governor is working towards finding a quick and workable solution to the problem.

In the present scenario, if a company’s provisional permit expires in 2022, chances are that the company will have to stop operations. The $100 million grant is expected to move into top gear the issue of securing local licenses. Of the grant, the maximum of $22 million has been allocated to Los Angeles.

However, people from the California marijuana industry said that the grant cannot solve all the issues unless the main issue of a month-long bottleneck in getting annual business permits okayed is solved.

Jerred Kiloh, President, L.A.-based United Cannabis Business Association, said that he’d prefer to see the Newsom administration focus its efforts on reforming the licensing process itself instead of throwing money at the existing problem.

Source: Read Full Article