California Donates $100 Million To Local Cannabis Businesses

On Wednesday of last week, California officials announced that the state is awarding $100 million to help develop local marijuana markets and help cannabis businesses receive complete licensing.

Instead of offering full-year licenses, the state Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) distributed the funds to 17 cities and counties that show a disproportionate number of provisional marijuana licenses.

In October, the DCC announced that applications for the Local Jurisdiction Assistance Program were open to the public. Provisional licenses were often granted to business applicants who wanted to make their way into the legal adult-use market quickly.

These temporary licenses were set to expire on January 1 but were recently extended to give localities more time to finish the permitting process and align with environmental requirements. With the new funds, the state will give those jurisdictions a boost in resources.

In a press release last week, BCC Director Nicole Eliott wrote that the local jurisdictions receiving grants “incorporated innovative approaches to meet the specific needs of their licensed communities,” which is exactly what they were hoping for when developing this program.

Eliott added that significant funding is “being directed to process improvements and environmental assessments,” which are both meant to help the state and local governments achieve short and long-term goals.

Some jurisdictions made clear to regulators that they are experiencing significant backlogs in processing licenses. One locality said it would take up to four years to finish its pending applications without the needed support. The DCC is also offering other funds to places with social equity programs.

As of now, here’s how regulators described the main functions of the $100 million funding, according to Marijuana Moment:

• Hire more staff to process significant workloads associated with transitioning businesses into the regulated market
• IT systems to create streamlined license processing
• Completion of environmental assessments and new initiatives for water protection and renewable energy

Additionally, the DCC announced a list of several ways different localities have been proposed to use the funds, which should be made available to the public once the municipalities pen the agreement.

One example is Long Beach, California. This locality will use some of its funds to “hire staff and consultants to assist with streamlining local permitting processes and processing applications,” and support “website design, technology improvements, and training to assist applicants,” noted Elliot’s press release.

Finally, Los Angeles will use its funding to hire additional personal to help licensees complete “locally-administered processes” to achieve “annual licensure and administer California Environmental Quality Act processes like document review and preparation of environmental documents.”