Recommendation to declare ordinance amending Long Beach Municipal Code by amending Sections 5.90.030 and 5.90.060, by adding Section 5.90.310; and, by amending and restating chapter 5.92, all relating to the regulation of cannabis retail storefront (dispensary) business licenses and the Cannabis Social Equity Program, read and adopted as read.  (Citywide)
Thank you very much. That concludes the Open General Comment section. So we're going to move on to item 28, which is an ordinance and I know there's a staff presentation on it. So we will go ahead and have the item read and then move on to staff. Report from City Manager Recommendation to clear ordinance relating to the regulation of Cannabis Retail, Storefront Business License and the Cannabis Social Equity Program. Read the first time and later to the next regular meeting of the City Council for Final Reading and to adopt a resolution to establish a request for proposals for cannabis retail storefronts citywide. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is an item that came from the Council to provide direction to bring additional dispensaries for equity applicants to the Council for consideration. There's been a lot of work, a lot of research and a lot of outreach. And I will turn it over to Emily Armstrong to walk us through this fairly complex presentation of a very important subject. Thank you, Emily. Thank you. All right. So good evening, honorable mayor and members of the city council. Tonight, I'm happy to present to you the equity dispensary ordinance and resolution for your approval. So to provide some history on this item. In October of last year, the City Council directed staff to prepare an ordinance allowing up to eight new dispensary licenses to be issued to verified equity applicants. The City Council directed staff to focus on a merit based RFP process that did not include a lottery to select the eight applicants eligible for a license, as well as expand the Green Zone for dispensaries in Long Beach by reducing certain sensitive use buffers. In addition, the City Council also directed staff to prepare an ordinance to allow equity delivery businesses in the city. That ordinance will be presented to the City Council after the zoning amendment has been approved by the Planning Commission in the next few months. So to start, I will be providing an overview of the key provisions in the Equity Dispensary Ordinance. To prepare the ordinance and resolutions staff researched best practices and consulted other cities, as well as held discussions internally and with equity applicants in the program. The outreach to equity applicants included an online survey, an in-person interactive workshop and an in-person town hall meeting. The key pieces of the ordinance include adding up to eight new dispensary licenses issued to equity applicants, which will be selected through a competitive RFP process. These dispensary licenses will be able to hold both a medical and adult use license, similar to the existing 32 dispensary licenses. Lastly, to expand the Green Zone for these dispensaries, staff has identified buffer amendments to certain sensitive uses as part of the expansion. Staff is recommending a six month moratorium on the existing 32 dispensaries being able to move locations into a newly expanded Green Zone area to allow the equity dispensaries time to find a viable location without additional potential competition. The buffers that are being reduced in the ordinance include buffers for schools, parks and beaches. However, these will be replaced by buffers for playgrounds and community centers, which will continue to buffer cannabis dispensaries from some parks and beaches in the city. Continuing our focus on the equity dispensaries, I would now like to discuss the resolution which establishes the guidelines and procedures for how the eight equity dispensary applicants will be selected through the RFP process. The intent of the RFP process is to create a fair and equitable process that utilizes criteria that evaluates the ability for the applicant or applicants to successfully apply for and operate a dispensary in Long Beach. To be eligible for the RFP process, you must either be a current verified equity applicant in the equity program or you must qualify for the equity program under the eligibility criteria that is in place as of the date that the RFP is advertised. Individuals that are not currently in the program will be able to submit their verification application documents along with their proposal for the dispensary license. If an individual meets the equity program eligibility criteria, they will be verified as an equity applicant during the RFP process by staff from the Office of Cannabis Oversight. If an individual does not meet the equity program eligibility requirements, their proposal will be deemed non-responsive and they will be disqualified from the RFP. Proposals may be submitted by one applicant or a group of equity applicants. However, no individual may be identified in more than one proposal. In addition, only one equity applicant per household may submit a proposal. The RFP will be reviewed and scored by a panel similar to a traditional RFP. However, members of the panel will be voluntary, anonymous and will not consist of panelists from Long Beach. Panelists will consist of individuals who have expertize in economic or business development, involvement in social equity matters, and or cannabis business regulators in another jurisdiction. The panelists will be selected by members of the Economic Development Department to reduce any bias in the process. The proposals will be evaluated by the panelists based on the categories you see on the screen. The specific evaluation criteria is currently being developed by staff from the Office of Cannabis Oversight, Financial Management and Economic Development and will not be made public until after the RFP process has concluded. As part of the RFP, applicants must also certify in their proposals that they will remain equity owned and will not transfer ownership to a non equity business for a period of five years from the issuance of the dispensary business license, as well as certify that they will obtain the license within three years from the date they are selected to move forward in the licensing process. Now that we've gone through the guidelines, I would like to walk through the steps of the RFP process. So first staff will conduct a stakeholder meeting to provide details on the RFP process, go over how to submit proposals and answer any questions applicants may have about the process. Next, the RFP will be posted on the city's procurement portal for 30 days, where applicants can submit their proposals. Unlike a traditional RFP, this RFP will pose questions and include response fields to make it easier for equity applicants to submit their proposals. Then once all proposals have been submitted and the submission period is closed, staff from OCA will evaluate the applicant's eligibility in the equity program. Individuals that do not provide the appropriate documents and who do not meet the eligibility criteria will be disqualified from the process. Anybody who does qualify will be able to move forward. For those that are deemed eligible, their proposal will be forwarded to the panelists for review and scoring, using the evaluation criteria and rubric established by staff. Scores will be compiled by OCO staff and the 16 proposals with the highest scores will move on to the interview phase of the RFP. They will be interviewed by the RFP panel using standardized questions to gauge their fitness to open and operate a dispensary. The RFP panel will then select the top eight equity applicants using a forest ranking process. Once the top eight are selected, the city will post the intent to award at least ten days before the award is made. Applicants who are not selected are able to submit a protest with the city's purchasing agent, who will evaluate the protest to verify if there is merit. Once the protest period has concluded, the eight equity applicants awarded will be able to move forward in the dispensary licensing process. During the RFP process, the equity applicant will not be required to have a property identified. Staff will assist and provide resources to the eight equity applicants to help find a viable location for their dispensary business. Once they have been awarded to move forward. This slide outlines the proposed timeline for the process. Staff anticipates releasing the RFP shortly after the ordinance takes effect in July, and the process is anticipated to take approximately 4 to 6 months to complete. The eight equity applicants will likely be selected around November to begin the licensing process. In addition to the equity dispensary process, the ordinance also outlined some updates to the equity program. So first off, is proposing to strengthen the equity program criteria to ensure the grants and assistance are provided to individuals most impacted by the war on drugs. Currently, individuals must have a family income below 80% of the area median income, and they either have to have lived in an eligible language census tract for at least three years or have a personal cannabis arrest or conviction. And up until July of last year, individuals could also qualify if they were currently receiving unemployment benefits in addition to meeting the income requirement. As you can see on the screen, under the current criteria, the majority of equity applicants have qualified under the residency criteria and or the unemployment criteria, and very few have qualified under the cannabis arrest or conviction requirement. Therefore, Staff is proposing to amend the equity program eligibility criteria to require individuals to have a family income below 80% of the army and to have lived in an eligible Long Beach census tract for at least five years. And to either have a personal cannabis arrest or conviction or have an immediate family member with a cannabis arrest or conviction. In addition to the eligibility criteria, the ordinance also includes a requirement that all equity businesses remain equity owned for a period of five years from the time they submit an application before they can transfer ownership to a non equity business as well as a one member per household policy. So that grant funds and assistance can be evenly distributed to applicants across the equity program. That concludes my report and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Thank you. And I just want to also just thank you and the staff for the presentation and the work to get us here. Another still council discussion and we want to hear from the public. Unless there is any objection, I'm going to have public comment and then we'll go back to the council. So we will read the first five members of the public who are set to speak, and then we'll do the next set. Just as a reminder for council rules, if ever we hit over ten people on any specific item, the 90 seconds gets gets gets hit because of the length of items. So as a reminder, I think there's there's a more than ten on this item as it probably will be for a few others. And so I'll turn it over to the clerk to get us through public comment. Well, the first. Five speakers, please line up first. Anthony Souza. Jovi. Davis. Eliot Lewes Sinai campaign and Tamika Boyce. You have 90. Seconds. Mr. Mayor, city council members, staff does a great job. You put together I know you guys been working really, really hard on it. We've been following it and it feels like we're getting a lot closer. First of all, my name is Anthony Souza, and I've been part of the city of Long Beach my whole life. I went graduated here from St Anthony's High School. I own businesses here. I own commercial, retail and residential properties here. My my kids live here. My grandkids live here. My nieces and nephews live here. So I've been part of this. I'm also currently an owner of a dispensary here in the city of Long Beach. I'm here today to briefly talk about the social equity program that's being considered. I have four points and that's it, I think. And the criteria should be as objective as possibly can. I feel is very important that the criteria as objective there should be not be a subjective inherent bias and be an objective that the applicant should have requirements which would include a minimum site location along with the business plan. I feel that it's hard and I went through the last application. Yeah, it's hard to qualify everybody and rank everybody. And I think the lottery is a very subjective way to process after. And so basically my second point is a lottery. If the applicants meet the requirements or applications would be eligible for a lottery when the eligible applicant. Thank you. What? I'm done. Okay. I didn't realize it so quick. Okay. Two more points and all. I won't. I won't go buffer zones. I think it should be a thousand feet from Kate K to 12 and 15, 1500 feet from dispensary. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Okay. Jodi Davis. Hi, everyone. My name is Jovi. I am a social equity applicant that you're speaking about. I just want to bring to the council's attention the obstacles facing social equity applicants in the city when it pertains to lack of capital and obtaining in a location. There's currently 32 dispensaries in the city, and most of them are multi-location or multistate operators with deep pockets, and they have all of the prime locations in our city. And what I'm asking is for the city's assistance with helping social equity applicants differentiate ourselves from these other competitions. I'm asking that you grant us the exclusivity to host consumption events. I feel that there is a demand for that. I feel that people are asking for these things, and I feel that this is a way for us to connect with our community. I feel that it would bring in a lot of the tourism that you're looking for, for coming in the city. And I feel that this should be exclusive to social equity applicants. We oftentimes when we're looking to investors and we're asking them for money, they're asking us, well, how are you different from the competition? How are you different from the other 32 dispensaries in the city that have money? They had the location that have all of the the brand deals. And I think that being able to host events and connect with our community would be a great way for us to boost our businesses. So thank you. Thank you. Elliot Lewis. Elliott Lewis, owner of Cannabis Cannabis Co. Look, you know, I can't get it all in a minute. Throw. Everybody who knows knows. Cannabis has been supporting this item since day one. So we're glad to see City Council move it through. I'm also really happy that we're moving on the tax issue. Great job. In addition to that, the letter to the state. I do want to say one thing. The cities are starting to move and that's great. And we're moving on social equity and we're moving on taxes. But at the end of the day, who's really sticking it to us is the state. And if we want to make any progress in this fight for cannabis businesses, not just social equity businesses get equal treatment under the law. We need to go down and chase down our state representatives. Senator Gonzalez needs to step up and get into this fight. Patrick O'Donnell needs to step up and get into this fight. The letter is a first step. I appreciate it. But if we move taxes from 8 to 6, we're going to take that entire hit. The state is the one that's oppressively taxing us. They have a $60 billion surplus and the taxes on cannabis is less than $1,000,000,000. It doesn't make any sense. We need equal treatment under the law. We need you guys to put the pressure on the state representatives. All this is great. I love Long Beach being progressive on cannabis. I tip my cap to everybody who's been involved that move this issue along. As you know, we support social equity. But none of this is going to work if we don't do the work at the state. They're the ones sticking it to the industry. Will the next few speakers please line up? James Marx, Julien Xavier, Muriel Burrill, Nate Boles and Dmitri Woodard Sunday Campaign. Um, I think a great staff presentation. I have to say respectfully, I don't know if the office of cannabis oversize appropriate administrator for this program. Um. Respectfully I think that it should be a DTI certified firm that is going to be run in that RFP panel. Um, economic development has some great people on the team, but I don't necessarily know if there's an equity lens inherent within that body. So if there is to be an emphasis on, you know, creating more opportunities for people that were being afflicted by the war on drugs, then I think we we as a city have to do a better job in actually facilitating that. We just had an applicant just so eloquently. She she, you know, brought forward the adversities that a lot of these businesses are dealing with. I would be curious to see or know how many people who have gone through the social equity program here in the city of Long Beach, who are a dispensary owner today or even in remaining in the cannabis space. I know for me in the six district we have a we already have a buffer zone being impacted by on the on the Pacific Avenue cultivation, people who are just across the street from YMCA. So I just think that if equity is to be taken serious, the city has to step up. Thank you. To meet the. Voice. Good evening, City Council. One of the things that I needed to get up and speak about after watching the resolution that Emily just presented is that we have to note one of the key points in it is that people will be allowed to enter into the RFP and the dispensary application process without being a verified social equity applicant on the front end. That absolutely flies in the face of every other social equity applicant who has been in this process since 2018, two current that have gone through the process and been waiting and trying to find the barriers and to lower the barriers to entry into to get into the business. I think it's absolutely ridiculous to even consider letting other people come and just jump the line. Now that there's an opportunity for retail dispensaries, additional retail dispensaries within the city, please reconsider that piece of the resolution. Thank you. James Marks. The. 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution is an amendment to the United States Constitution that was adopted in 1868, granted citizenship, an equal set of civil and legal rights to African-Americans and enslaved people who have been emancipated after the Civil War. And it read Section one. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which celebrates abridge. The synonym is curtailed to less and reduce or decrease the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States. Nor shall any state deprive any persons of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor denied to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. So what we are asking under the Constitution of the United States, under the 14th Amendment, is an opportunity to play on an equal playing field, along with the immediate dismissal of Emily Armstrong, who was in Office of Inequity, due to her continued guardianship of past institutionalized racism and our current recent implementation of practices that are blatantly racist . And her disregard for the impact that the war jurors have had and still had on black communities in the city of Long Beach. We request someone who fully innocence the devastation of the war on black people in the black community here in the city of Long Beach. By removing Emily Armstrong from that office. We can surely start the journey of writing many wrongs by remaining true to the spirit of the unanimous City Council vote and other departments citywide acknowledging racism as a public health crisis. We can begin. And then can we? Only your time. Thank you. It all starts with accountability. With that comes a great deal of responsibility, which is the ability to respond. Also, yes. The responsibility for. Thank you very much, sir. Gillian Merry. Jillian Xavier is next. Mary Ellen, speak first and then I'll go. Joanne, I'll go next. Thank you. Great evening, everyone, with giving all glory and honor to God. I have a letter here written by the LBC, which is a Long Beach social equity entrepreneurs, and that would be who was standing behind me this letter to notify the city of Long Beach and other authorities responsible for the licensing and regulation of social equity cannabis businesses in the city, that they are not in compliance with the previously written policies or the framework for reconciliation. We seek accountability and amendments to recent policies enacted by the Office of Cannabis Oversight regarding cannabis technical assistance, funding the regulation regarding who is eligible to apply, and privacy protection for the intellectual property of each applicant in the form of an NDA signed agreement. The US and the City of Long Beach have a history of racist policies and practices that have hurt black residents and other communities of color. The city of Long Beach is currently guilty of this ongoing practice. We are requesting a full independent investigation into the aforesaid and requesting additional amendments to your current policies and procedures that further exacerbate the progression of black people. Systemic racism occurs when institutions and organizations such as municipalities and government agencies and their officials adopt and maintain policies that routinely produce inequitable outcomes for people of color and advantages for white people such as past redlining and the current policies and procedures that are in place by the Office of Equity, which is also the Office of Inequity . Before I continue this letter, I want to address an elephant in the room. So we were at the town hall meeting and you guys said, Well, we're going to do changes to the equity grant program. We're going to go from 445 to 80000. Right. The question was asked them as Emily Armstrong, any applicant put in the application prior to April 1st, would they be grandfathered in? The woman repeated. The question that we asked disappeared for a week and came back and said, Oh, Jillian, you know, I misunderstood the question, but you repeated the question. You can't just insult us. We've been here since 2018, and you bring in other people to come. And do what? The application process for our dispensaries is closed. You've got more than enough. You got 40 people in the room. 32 people not going to make it. You got to give us a chance to make it. Give us what we need, and here's what we'll do in exchange. You give us the funding. In exchange, we will donate back into the program to help the next person. That's an even exchange of services, right? That makes more sense than having $1,000,000, giving ten people a hundred thousand and half a million to get into the business to a million. So ten people failed. That's ridiculous. That's a failing grade. That's a f. You lied. Thank you. Your tongue said get rid of her. For the next few speakers, line up. Jose Hernandez. Danielle Lopez. Carlos Cepeda. Good evening. City Council members. My name is enables. I'm a social equity applicant here in the city of Long Beach and owner of the Good Smoke Company Cannabis brand based out of Long Beach. The city needs to get it together as far as social equity and creating a process to see these licenses through. We need to create a common sense approach and to continue the letter from my colleagues in the Long Beach. Social equity entrepreneurs matters such as current policies passed or not passed funding invested or not invested directly affect the quality of life in Long Beach neighborhoods that have been and are still being grievously targeted and impacted by such policies. Overpolicing and racism. All one has to do is a data check, a fact checked on the arrest and convictions when it comes to neighborhoods of color. Although cannabis is legal, it's almost as though being black is not, according to citywide data and statistics. On June nine, 2020, the Long Beach City Council engaged in earnest conversations about racism and unanimously declared racism as a public health crisis with the need to restore public trust in the city government and how to reconcile a gap in the experiences of impacted around black people within the current city policies, especially the black community. The City Council called upon city staff to prepare a report that would put the City Council in a position to enact policy and make decisions to change the system. The palpable, disrespected presented recently in city public meetings, city officials, especially those in the Office of Cannabis Oversight and a staff, is ethically and morally unacceptable. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Demetrius. Hi. My name is Demetrius Woodard, an original lottery winner back in 2010. And I can write a book. What Happened to us? We would like for you to open share use manufacturing of paper for equity applicants in addition to social equity delivery licenses. Immediately please revise grant application process to be less redundant and simplified for equity applicants as previously done to receive your funding without any delays, setbacks and or unnecessary repudiation while ensuring applicant protection with necessary privacy policies and NDAs in place if not a book. The City of Long Beach and its council in all other municipalities with its jurisdictional metropolis, are supposed to be aligned under these three key goals, according to the Framework for Reconciliation Goal number one within systemic racism in City of Long Beach and all local government and partner agencies to internal transformation, go to design and invest in community safety and violence prevention. GOAL three Improve health and wellness in the city by eliminating social and economic disparities in the communities most impacted by racism. The above goals and recommendations represent the LPC believes can be reasonably accomplished within the existing power and the governing authority of the City of Long Beach. Please make a motion to discuss and adopt and approve the above recommendations. Thank you. You'll see. Good evening, Mayor. Council members my name is Jay-Z Mendes. I'm the political director for Catalyst Care, which is the Community Service and Policy Advocacy Branch of Catalyst Cannabis Co. And I'm here to speak in favor of the three items that are here tonight. We've spoken about this issue before, folks. Many folks have spoken about this for months and years. And so I'm very happy to hear that this council is in unison in support of the three items, of course, lowering local cannabis taxes, making sure that we have a chance to fight against the black market and really have a chance to thrive. But of course, as was mentioned, the state taxes are really what's holding us under. They don't tax liquor like they do us. They don't tax oil like they do us. But for whatever reason, we're, you know, overtaxed. And so our rallying cry is this lowered taxes, higher access. And so I would definitely want to uplift Mary and the council members and their House and Councilmember Cindy Allen for championing these issues. You know, you're on the right side of this, and we thank you. And most importantly, the social equity applicant situation, our communities, Latino, black, brown communities, minority communities we would think were impacted by years and years. Folks are still in prison for something that affluent folks are benefiting from. So people that are in the game that are supporting social equity applicants, as we've been building up for this moment, to pass the ordinance to allow for more people to benefit from this, that's who we want to be with and that's what we uplift. And thank you so much. And please do the right thing. Thank you. Carlos. Oh. Good evening. Mayor and City Council. The city's slow action has contributed to the social equity dilemma by restricting the competition in line. Most of the non social equity dispensaries to build and protect the market power illegally. Current city ordinance aims at maintaining an operational footprint primarily, primarily limited licenses with high natural barriers to entry, resulting in a limited market participation which benefits, you guessed it, those resources. And again, we start in the back of the line. Given the significant diversity of the city's population, it is appalling that out of the 32 operating dispensaries in the city, not one is owned by a black, brown or Southeast Asian individual. We are better than that. This is not indicative of who we are as a city. Collectively, minorities are the backbone, foundation, soul, seasoning and energy of the city. While delivery licenses and social equity dispensaries are an acceptable start, it is far from equitable. A disparity will still exist. We must push ourselves and talk about licenses for cannabis consumption lounges and special events for social equity applicants. My only concern is who we deem Long Beach residents. Let's be more selective about who we consider. Three years of living in the city does not make you a Long Beach resident. I use myself as an example. Horace Mann. Jefferson Middle School. Wilson Reed. A continuation and to Cal State Universities to complete an undergraduate and graduate degree all while remaining a resident and active member. Thank you. All right. Thank you. The last speaker is Danielle. Hello. My name is Danielle Lopez and I live. In District one. I am a community and digital organizer for Catalyst Cares from Catalyst Cannabis Company. And like you, I'm here to work to help enrich the lives of our community. That's what Catalyst for Change is. I support Agenda Item 17, 28 and 33. Outrageous and unfair. State and local taxes are driving the cannabis industry to fall before it's given the chance to rise. Because of high taxes, thousands of. Union paying jobs with benefits will be gone. I support the social equity applicant program. There are hundreds of folks who are victims of the war on drugs. For years, when cannabis was illegal, that could have built generational wealth by creating and owning a stake in the legal cannabis industry. Long Beach must move to right the wrongs of the past by giving more licenses. To bipoc groups in retail for retail ownership. I once again call on my city to action and have lower taxes and higher access support social equity applicant ordinance and urge the state to lower the state cannabis tax. And thank you, Councilmember Cindy Allen and marrieds in the House for leading these initiatives for the people. Thank you very much. I want to thank everyone that spoke on this item on on this, particularly on the social equity ordinance. And we also have two other additional cannabis items that we'll be hearing as well. But I just want to thank you for for those that made comments. We do have a motion and a second on this item. So go through the folks that have that are to send it to Q and I'll make some comment as well, but I'll let the council go first. I will start with Councilman Austin. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. And I want to thank all of the those in the public who came out to speak today on this particular item. This is a, I think, a great day for the city to move social equity forward in cannabis industry. This is a long time coming, and I'm glad we're finally here at this critical point. It's not perfect, but I for the sake of moving the agenda forward, I think it's important that we move in, vote on something tonight to get social equity. I'll make that a reality in our in our city. Today, we are again moving the bar toward a more equitable future for cannabis retail in our city. Eight new licenses will represent at least 20% of the retail market in the city, and that could be as soon as within, within months from now. In a feedback from this process, I want to just say compliment staff and command everybody in the public who participated, because much of what you have seen before you has been a result of comment from city council coming from subject matter experts, comment from folks in the industry and the public who helped really frame this process. I know one of the the when we when we brought this item forward, when I brought this item for several months ago, it was, hey, we want to make sure that the process is fair. And so I kind of want to ask a couple of questions regarding the fairness of the process. You know, there was there was conversation about, you know, potentially making it more subjective and going toward a lottery. Can you tell us why why we didn't move forward and make that a recommendation? Why was staff hasn't made that a recommendation. Yeah. So back in October when we released the feasibility study, that was an option and that was actually the recommendation by staff was to include a merit based process similar to an RFP. But at the very end, select those who kind of meet the top using a lottery. And at that meeting in October, it was clear from community input that the lottery was not the way to go and that you should really just focus on the merits of the business and the application. So I believe Council at that time decided to take away the lottery aspect. Thank you for clarifying that. And also so we heard from a number of people who said, hey, you know what, we've been in the system for many years and now we are going to, you know, number one, how many applications do we have? If you could tell us that? And and is there a cutoff is there a moratorium on new applications during this process? So we have currently today 156 verified equity applicants. The the involvement is unclear. But for this process, we don't have a cap and we don't have a cap on the number that we're allowing into the program. Okay. Well, I'll just tell you from my concern that that's a high number. I would I understand the apprehension of anybody who has been waiting for four years in the process to get there. And if there is a way to, you know, to put a moratorium on on on on applications, I'd be happy to to support something like that. Is that something that we could do tonight? Mr. City attorney. We can, and it would have to come back again for a new first reading, but we could change it and make that change. Okay. Or we could bring an item next week to do that as well. Right. We. I'm sorry, I think but we can we can make the change a required and bring it back next week if that would be how we would do it. It's it is a substantive change to what's before. It's a substantive, substantial change. Yes. But if we were to bring it back as an individual item next week and layer it on top of this, we could pass something tonight. Is that correct? You could you could start that process. You could request us to prepare it next week. Then it'd be another week for us to bring it back for a first reading to amend what we're doing. So you couldn't you couldn't do it next week. Okay, you have to request it. Then it would come back for first reading and a second reading. So it wouldn't it wouldn't be able to happen next week. No, there's a second on his motion, but would you be open to supporting that as well? Council Member Yes, I would. Okay. Well, that is an amendment that I like to put in. And just to be clear. Councilmember Orson, are are you putting a moratorium on the program as a whole, allowing new or just the dispensary process. The dispensary, the retail applications? Okay. To ensure that, you know, we're talking about 156 and only eight people are going to get get applications tomorrow. Once we this is announced, you probably get another 50 more applications. I want to say, hey, you know, the people that have already been in this process should should be awarded the given the opportunities. Okay. And then and then I did decide I gave a significant amount of my time to a staff here. But there was also something that was very, very interesting to me, because I heard from one applicant that said that they won in the original lottery process. Right. That to me, that should be a priority in terms of an award as well. And, you know, and I'd be interested, I did 150 cents applicants. How many of them were awarded in the original lottery process? Yeah. I don't have that data, but we can look into that. Okay. Because that shouldn't be an extreme number. And again, we we have folks who went through the process, got the lottery award to begin with, lost their their businesses for whatever reason. And now they're coming back to to to be in the back of the line for. For an application process, I think is is a little counterproductive and unfair as well. And so I'd like to give some priority to any social equity or applicant who had previously been awarded a business license through a lottery process here in the city of Long Beach. Those are my comments. And I would ask my colleague support on those two items. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Allen? Yes. I definitely like to think staff on all of your hard work on these ordinances. I know that we requested some changes, and it's great to see that our social equity program is expanding today. I do appreciate the expansion of the Green Zone and updates to the eligibility criteria. I think that was really helpful. I do have some concerns about the ownership requirements in this ordinance. It says that applicants must certify 51% ownership for a period of five years. And it is my understanding that after five years, the business can be sold to a non-equity entity. I understand that these folks may want to sell the business at some point in time, but I am concerned that immediately allowing non equity businesses to buy these licenses after five years will compromise the viability of our equity program. I also like to make a note. This is not a motion that my office is exploring innovative ownership structures and will be working with staff to bring these ideas to council when it's appropriate. But I would like to make a motion at this time that applicants submit a ten year business plan instead of a five year business plan, and that staff. Bring back a report to Council on the Status of our equity businesses in five years to determine if these entities should be sold to non equity owners after the completion of the submitted ten year business plan. Also. I appreciate Councilman Austin. I agree with everything that you said. I I do believe that people, you know, already in the process should get those licenses. So I support all all of the the items that that you that you recommended. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. May I ask a question? I'm sorry. The city attorney. I wasn't actually going to ask to make sure that those were accepted by the maker of the motion as part of a master motion. Okay. And the city attorney. Did you have a comment? Just a question. Councilmember Allen. On your motion for the five year plan, you've asked to amend the ordinance to make that a ten year plan and a ten years before it could be sold. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Sorrell. Thank you, Mayor. I'll add my support to both amendments and also add that, you know, I just want to make sure there's a little more clarity around the review panel as far as the criteria in participating it to ensure that there is fairness and impartiality, impartiality, excuse me, impartiality in how it's scored. So when it asks that if they are scoring the applicants, that maybe the name is not shown, but everything else can be as far as their description, so that there isn't kind of this kind of set up with, you know, because it's hard to tell if there's a relationship connected to the applicants. So that's one request I like to make as we maybe get a little more clarity about what that that would be the process. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First, I want to thank and acknowledge staff for bringing this back and thank all the community advocates for being at the table for this entire process. Some things stood out to me from what I heard today. One that stood out was lower taxes, higher access. I think the package of things that are on the agenda today certainly speak to that. I think it's we just have to acknowledge that it's an economic imperative that we continue to invest in this industry. And we've seen, particularly at a time when sales tax has gone down, transit occupancy tax has gone down during the pandemic that we were able to continue services because cannabis demonstrated its resiliency at a very difficult time during the pandemic. And so it's an economic imperative, I think, in order to continue to provide services and come out of this recovery, that we double down on what works. And so this step, adding eight additional dispensaries, is actually smart business for the city. We've shown and we've learned from the beginning of the cannabis process how to refine it, make it better on the cannabis equity process. You know, hasn't it hasn't worked. And I think what we see here are some examples of how we've learned on what doesn't work and made it better. I think even looking at like I remember the first lottery when the balls didn't even fit in the machine when I was working for a previous councilman, Steve Neal. And now we have a it looks like an evaluation process that really built on independence, a panel where no one's from Long Beach. And it's all people who don't have a, you know, any bias and are going to look at the merit of the process. I think that's good. One other thing that I heard today was someone talked about the barrier of the lack of capital to enter the market. And, you know, I was you know, I was curious and I know we got a big grant to help with this. But if you could walk us through the resources that are that are actually available today to help people, I think that's important to make sure local folks actually have support and capital to get into the marketplace . Yeah. So just to give an update on kind of where we're at with the grant funding that we have, we have two grants. One has not yet been received. That's the latest round of GOPers funding, which was $3.2 million. So we're just waiting for that check to come from the state. But right now for round two, we have about $50,000 remaining in that fund and that's supposed to last through October of this year. So we're trying to space it out and make it more equitable and be able to give funding. And I'm looking forward to getting that 3.2 million. Okay. I mean, 3.2 million is is definitely good when you spread it out across applicants. You know, we certainly are going to need to do better and identify more resources to help people make it through. I like the idea of figuring out how to make sure that, you know, there's some longevity with the program, that it doesn't disappear in three years. I think there may be other ways to achieve that. You know, I'm supportive of, you know, what's in front of us today, but maybe a covenant on the licenses. People can sell it, but they need to sell it to a cannabis offering. So it continues to be a cannabis person. That's something to explore. But what's in front of us, I think makes sense. I'm happy to support it. I think we need to again. I think it's just an economic imperative that we continue, you know, to invest in this market so we can continue to get resources and revenue from this market, particularly so we can invest in homelessness and some of the quality of life issues that are really impacting our city right now. And so I want to see those revenues continue to grow. So this has my support today and I encourage the council to support it. Thanks. Thank you, Councilman Mongo. Thank you. I want to thank everyone for coming tonight. I really appreciate all the input. I want to acknowledge that this has been a long process, but I do want to also acknowledge that when we were prioritizing a lot of these different components of equity applicants, I'm really a councilmember Austin championed pushing forward a a parallel track so we would be where we are today. And so I know that that is difficult on the staff when you have multiple things going on. And I know there was a little bit of frustration for the lack of resources, but I want you to know that everyone here tonight and those of us on the dais really appreciate the extra hours that it took to make sure that both of those things came forward at the same time. Because really, the standalone dispensaries is where there's a lot of opportunity at this time. I'd also like to state that sometimes people want to come and bring an item to council and not have any changes. And I think that listening to the community and really thinking about the things that you've said can change things in a meaningful way. And so I appreciate sometimes when we make changes, there's a lot of frustration and the audience because they want it right now. And I hear something different from all of you. You want to get it right. And I really, really appreciate that. And so for that and because we do have great relationships, I'm just going to throw something out there. Councilwoman Allen and Councilmember Austin, I know that you're really committed to finding a way to maintain equity in the city. As someone who has been involved in investments in the past and sometimes found out that I'm the person that I was in an investment with, might not have been the right partner at the time. I never want to lock someone into something that they can never get out of. So I'd love to add something where, if you would like to sell your share in advance of the ten years, it would need to be to another equity partner. Therefore, we maintain the equity, but we really talk about you and your freedom. If you have an opportunity to capitalize earlier than ten years, we don't want you to have to wait for ten years to realize that that that revenue. We want you to be able to have that flexibility and bring that forward at any time as long as it still benefits another equity member. Is that something you'd be open to? I'm absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman in the house. Thank you very much. I think we've come a long way in this council since since I first got on this council. And thank you council member Austin and council member Allen for bringing this very important item forward. I love it when we create policy and draft policy and launch policy that is guided with the community's input and listening to the community because they are the ones that are living it every day, day in and day out. And so I want to thank the staff for being so flexible and so open and so willing to really work and really try to make this equity program work. I feel that we are not there yet, but we're headed in the right direction and it's all because we all come together and work together. So for that, I'm very thankful. Thank you. Very happy to support this item. Think it, Councilwoman. So I'm just going to just say a few. I think I think most has already been already been said. I just want to first really think of just the team. I know this has actually been a very difficult process to kind of get where we are today. This is a actually significant amount of work that has gone into creating not just this city's first social equity program related to cannabis, but really one of the first that is happening across this city and across the country in a way that actually is going to make an impact and is meaningful. So I just want to thank the city for leading on this issue and acknowledge that we wouldn't be here had it not been for the folks that are actually here in the audience. And I've actually been pushing not just this issue, but organizing, working with elected officials, uplifting the issue at the council and in the community, and keeping folks accountable every step of the way to ensure that the city adopts a program that is really centered on equity, on access, and one that we can be walk away and be proud of to have developed in this in the city. I it's important to recognize I mean, any time that we have a discussion or debate about about particular about cannabis or cannabis policy or or tax regulations, I'm reminded that we have we have figured so much of this out together in a process that has been in many ways two so still very new as a legal economy in the city, in the state. And so to get here and going through this process has been difficult. But I am also really proud to be in a city where so many folks are fighting for equity and on this issue especially, that has damaged so much of our black community, of people of color and the injustices that have happened and the racial inequities that have happened around the drug war, around marijuana convictions, has has damaged so much of our community today, and especially the dialog around around cannabis. And so I think that what we're doing today is such a great and positive step. I agree. It's not a perfect policy. I don't think anything we've done around cannabis has been perfect the first time we've done it, whether it's our tax structure or the regulations or the buffers, it's we have we have tried to fix things as we go because we're actually this is the first time that we're actually doing this type of this level of work on this issue. And so I'm glad that we're doing it and I'm glad along which is leading the way and things that aren't working. We're going to have to tweak and we're going to have to fix and we have to improve as we go along like we have on every other issue related to cannabis and and the marijuana economy. I also just want to note, and I know we're going to talk about this soon on the on the tax side, but I do want to thank folks who have brought this issue up that it's pretty clear to to to most of us that in the development of whether it's been social equity policy or whether it's been our own marijuana ordinance that was on the ballot that voters voted for, whether it was the initial tax structure that was put on the ballot that voters voted for. You know, we have learned along the way, and I think tonight is a great reflection of the city on making adjustments to be better and to hopefully center more more equity, to support more people and to really shine a light on just the the misconceptions and the prejudice that still exists out there around cannabis and around what I think all of you are trying to do in trying to uplift to the community and to the country. So I just want to thank you for your work. And with that, we do have a motion and a second in front of us. That's by Councilman Ashton and Councilman Allen. We have all of the amendments that are in place. Again, a big thank you to Emily and the. And the team. I know it's a lot of hard work and no, not everything is perfect. But I just want to thank everyone and what that will do, we will do a vote. Motion is carried. Great. Thank you very much. We're going to move right into item 17, which is the tax reduction report.