Recommendation to request City Attorney to prepare and return to the City Council for its consideration, all documents necessary to place one or more possible ballot initiatives on the November 8, 2016 ballot related to the taxation of recreational and medical marijuana; and/or request City Attorney to prepare and return a competing medical marijuana regulatory ordinance for placement on the November 2016 ballot.
Great. Okay. Madam Clerk, if you can go ahead and read the item, please. Which is item number 19? Yep. Communication from Councilmember Richardson, Councilwoman Gonzalez. Councilwoman Mongo recommendation to request the city attorney to prepare all documents necessary to place one or more possible ballot initiatives on the November 8th ballot related to the taxation of recreational and medical marijuana, and. Or to prepare and return a competing medical marijuana regulatory ordinance for placement on the ballot. Okay. Thank you. I'm going to go out and turn this over to Councilmember Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So last week, the city council voted to submit a petition driven ballot measure to the voters in the in November 2016 regarding the regulation and taxation of medical marijuana businesses in our city. In that measure, there are provisions that will repeals taxes previously adopted in 2010 by city voters related to the sale and cultivation of recreational marijuana and significantly reduce the voter approved taxes on medical marijuana. In addition, a statewide initiative regarding recreational marijuana is qualify for placement on the November 2016 statewide ballot. That measure permits local governments to establish local sales and use taxes related to the sale of production. Recreational marijuana if passed. Tonight, we have an opportunity to make sure that our taxable structure is set up in a way that we capture tax revenue with both medicinal and recreational cannabis in order to offset our own costs as a city, and that we have the resources to ensure a public benefit. Therefore, I move. Here's a vote. I'm making a motion and I'm submitting this motion to the clerk to share with the council, should they if they want it. The motion is to request the city attorney to prepare and return to City Council all documents necessary to place an initiative on the November 8th, 2016 ballot related to the taxation of marijuana businesses. At its August 2nd meeting, which does the following number one. Establishes a gross receipts tax of 6% on medical marijuana dispensaries and delegates authority to increase that tax to a maximum rate of 8% by a majority vote of the city council. Number two, it establishes a gross receipts tax of 8% on the non-medical sale of marijuana for adult use and delegates authority to increase that tax to a maximum rate of 12% by a majority vote of the city council. Number three establishes a gross receipts tax of 6% on any business located in Long Beach that engages in the manufacture, testing, processing, distributing, packaging or labeling of marijuana or marijuana containing products, medical or non-medical for wholesale to other retail marijuana businesses that sell those products to customers and delegates authority to increase that tax to a maximum rate of 8% by a majority vote of the City Council. If such a business conducts retail sales, the gross receipts tax identified above on retail sales in Long Beach will apply in lieu of the tax in this section and then finally establish a tax of $12 per square foot of space dedicated in the cultivation of marijuana over the canopy area and delegated authority to increase that tax to a maximum rate of $15 per square foot by majority vote of the City Council. So this motion applies only to the taxation of marijuana and leaves untouched other sections of the regulation of medical marijuana businesses initiatives that qualified for the ballot through signature gathering. So again, this approach is balanced, it's modest. It assures that the tax revenue is captured to ensure that the city of Long Beach does receive public benefit. Should the voters move forward with adopting this this marijuana ordinance? I urge support. Thank you. Thank you. There is the motion and a second on the floor. I'm going to do public comment first. Or Councilwoman Price, do you want to go next? Councilman Price was asked to go to public comment first. I have a question. I just had a question. Oh, sure. Councilman, is this considered a competing initiative. Vice mayor or members of the council? It would be a competing measure as to the taxing portion of the initiative. We would make it clear in this if it were approved by the council when it came back, it would make it clear to the voters that this would compete with the tax portion of that initiative. But the rest of the regulatory ordinance it would not compete with. Okay. Would not invalidate the regulatory ordinance. Okay. But in regards to the taxes and things, there's direct, direct differences between what's proposed and what this competing initiative. That is correct. And under the election code, in order to be successful, this initiative, this proposal would have to receive more votes than the other initiative. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. I see no other council comment. Any public comment? Please come forward. No. Go ahead. My name is Stephanie Dawson, so I'm a resident of the second district. I will say that the taxes that are being assessed for are proposed on this measure with pursuant to manufacturing distribution are entirely within line, reasonable and balanced within the retail sector. However, I will warn that they are that in anywhere with above 6% is going to be high. If a in a collateral bill from the county also passes, which is going to assess a 10% sales tax on top of that, especially pursuant to the four medical patients, is going to be extremely problematic because one each has passed a 10% sales tax on her own just for the city. Combine that with the inability for any of these retail businesses, especially to deduct any of their business expenses because of the federal prohibition on it. And you're going to be tapped out. You're going to be making retail outlets essentially unable to function, potentially. You're going to have ones that are going to be well-financed and ready and willing to open, willing to provide good union, local jobs that frankly, will not be able to operate with an effective tax rate. You know, just adding these all up in my head at this point, you know, they could be anywhere from 50 to 75% with inclusion of the problem from the feds. So please do not tax retail, tax manufacturing, feel free to tax cultivation, distribution, any of those things. But at this point, wait until the county is going to be making clear how much of a bite they're going to be taking on the front end. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. I am Francis, Emily Tyson Harris and I reside in District one. And I don't really have a lot of background in terms of the details of all this, but I will share this much. I've watched different programs where they speak about the taxation, and there is a concern about persons that have medical problems and the tax level for medicinal marijuana and the problems that will create like financially for them in terms of paying this extra money. And the other thing has to do with I don't know if you can answer this at this particular time, but I'm kind of a bit concerned to see, I understand about the taxing allowance, tax benefit that the state of California is going to have to pass out. But this extra money that the money that the state is giving, what's the plans with the state? How do they plan to spend the money? What are they going to do with this extra money and. I didn't hear anything mentioned was just a good thing about home delivery, a marijuana type service, which I don't believe that's on the plate. But when he mentioned about the federal government, that's a major matter of concern because some of the programs and different conversations I've had and just trying to search to get more knowledge about the matter, there's a concern about with the federal government receiving money and there's collectives in other states that literally cannot make purchases with credit cards, debit cards. It all has to be done by cash. So there's a major problem with tracking the money. So I don't know what is in line with this, but I really, really, really seriously think that something's going to have to be on the have to be established in terms of how the money's going to be tracked. So thank you very much. And I can't say that I approve of all of these levels because I find it somewhat problematic. I reason I understand why you have it here, but there's still to me, a lot of questions are not answered. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Thank you. Surely researching or consultant Pastor Schwab Group and Associates as we're sitting here tonight, I need to remind us that as we as you're about to vote, a vote is being cast in heaven because God is watching each of you. And you represent not just the city. You represent each of your family members. So while you're voting in this year, you're saying to your family members and those who are unborn that I support you starting to either smoke marijuana. I support the wave of the fumes in the park. So I support being with you when you go by the buildings. I supported the people who are sitting in the cars. The smell of it. I am supporting. True story. When I was not here from 2012 through 2014. The beginning of 2015 is when I returned back to the city of Long Beach. I was starting initiative services for homeless in Ventura County, helping to augment their services. That is where I have been. When I was out before you, I was recommended by a parent who was her son. Ventura County sheriff officer said, I want you, my son, to work with your organization. The son had a heroin problem and he was now going through rehabilitation to get off of heroin. And so as a pastor and both as a volunteer coordinator, his mother wanted him to work with me and I had a chance to ask him. I said, I have not done drugs. I have not cigarets alcohol is not a part of my daily. So I need your honest opinion. Young man, 21 years old, having come through Cordon Blue Chef training, but he couldn't even use the skill because now he was hooked on heroin. I said, Where do you start? I said, I'm hearing talk that marijuana is the gateway drug. I need your personal opinion. 21 year old now sitting in front of me needing help. Where did it start? He said Marijuana. I started smoking marijuana. And then after you do that, somebody comes along, you know, they're putting Primos, right? They're mixing the cocaine with the marijuana. And then we have a had our chief in his absence. I don't see him anymore. But I remember Suzy asked in the chief are we have can handle the the the the outside carriers or distributors or manufacturers of the product. And she said no, we can handle it. So now we're voting it in anyway any power that is God puts it in office. So he had your chief and all the other police officers tell you we cannot handle this if people who are not authorized to sell this product began to make it illegally. So you're voting it in in spite of hearing your chief. So why are you doing that? Understand that God is saying, okay, all of your family members, somebody is going to be end up with a drug habit and they're not going to stop at marijuana. Prophetically, you are giving this order of the day. Thank you. Due process. Time is up. Next speaker is our final public speaker. It looks like I'm going to close public speaking after dark after councilman tauranga and then the speaker's close. Next speaker thank you, diana. La genes. And by the way, welcome to janine piercer, our newest. Yeah, i would actually like to answer that very quickly. Marijuana is not a gateway drug up. In fact, actually, it's used quite often for a gateway drug out of heroin and out of alcoholism and out of those things. So it is actually an effective drug gateway out of those things. And what I would also say is 600 churches just recently came on board saying that we need to legalize and deal with it as a as a health issue. Now, speaking of being God given. Now, medical marijuana is a miraculous God given herb. This was given to us by God. Thank you. And it treats a myriad of illness ailments that includes cancer, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, PTSD. And I think you've heard me say these things before, but you need to get it, because what I hear is that it you know, I keep hearing you say things that, you know, well, it's this or it's that. These are myths. Don't perpetuate the myths. It's discriminatory. You've had the opportunity to create a reasonable ordinance, but you failed. You had the citizens put forth their time and money and effort. And now you want to undermine this this effort. And it's totally disrespectful. Now, here we're talking about taxes. Okay. So you're talking 6 to 10 sales. 6 to 8 gross grow. 12 to 15 square foot on the grow. That's besides the 10% that the L.A. C Los Angeles County is putting forward. The state is charging 15%. The state board of Equalization starting charging 10%. Come on, people. How greedy can you be? I mean, this this showing nothing but greed. Discrimination against groups is wrong. Yet this council and government continues to demonize and degrade people who are sick and disabled that need this medicine. You've got 900 over almost 900 liquid drug outlets in Long Beach. And yet you demonized this this God given plant. So your constituents have voted time and again for in favor of it. It needs to go. You had your opportunity. Let it be. If you want to do something good, bring it back and make it into law now instead of sending it to the voters. In the end, we're all have to answer to a higher power. And, you know, I really wonder how this deliberation would go if Jesus Christ himself was standing here. I think he'd be ashamed. Anyway, you're supposed to be representatives and leaders, and we'd like to know when will that start? Thank you. And our last speaker. And then we're going back to the council. Tony was the wrong address on file. I just want the council to use the utmost caution and be as conservative as possible when it comes. To medical marijuana. If it was my preference. I would not tax medical marijuana at all, but put the burden on recreational. And I think, you know, we can't. Go to my sister who has who has a husband, had stage four colon cancer. She couldn't. Go to take her Blue Shield card. And get compensation or pay for that medicine. The Rick Simpson oil that that relieved. Him I think it was Simpson oil something like that. That really helped to. Alleviate the pain. She couldn't do that. She had to cash in her retirement so that she wouldn't see her husband suffer. He ultimately took care of it by his own hands. And it was unfortunate, but the pain he was going through was just too much for her and for him. So it's not like you can just go to your insurance company and say, hey, this really is something that helps and that is proven. So I would ask for you to reconsider. At least take a look at it and make sure that you are you have some. Consideration, sympathy for those people. Who actually use this to alleviate their pain and to use it because they need it. And it is an economic burden as well as a physical one. And again, I would prefer that medical. Marijuana is not taxed at all and that all the burden is put on recreational. But I know it's up to you. Thank you. Okay. Speaker list is closed. We're going back to the council for a vote. Councilwoman Price. I have a question about this tax. Is it one of the things that I agree with, with one of the comments that Shirley made? Our police chief has indicated very publicly that our police department cannot handle the additional responsibilities that not the legal operations, but the illegal operations would bring. And what we've seen is in the city of L.A., for example, there's 135 legal dispensaries and over 1000 illegal ones. So it is going to place a strain on our police department. That's just a reality. So the question that I have is, is it possible for us similar to things that we've done in the past to indicate whether it's tonight or at some point down the road, an intent to spend the money on public safety so that the money that's generated through the taxes goes back into enforcing the operations. Because I'm sure that even the legal operators will want the police's assistance in shutting down the illegal operators. So we're going to need to have some money in enforcing the operations. And could this tax be used for that? Mr. City. Attorney. Thank you, Mayor. Members of the council, the tax revenue and the way I understand the motion, that the motion would come back to you as a general tax, which would go to the general fund and then allocated by the Council as the Council deems appropriate. If if there was a desire to dedicate the proceeds to, as you said, law enforcement or code enforcement or other services necessary, you may create it as a special tax, which would require a two thirds vote of the people in order to pass. So I think you have to be very careful on how you allocate or where you would say you would dedicate it. Similar to Measure A, there was a resolution non-binding that was advisory on the council for that. Something like that could be done, but generally speaking, it would be a general tax come to the Council for allocation . So the resolution, would that be something that could come to the council after tonight? That is correct. It could come at any time. Okay. So I would make a friendly amendment that we asked the city attorney to look at a resolution that would express the intent of the council to spend any tax revenues, to cost recovery for any operations associated with medical marijuana enforcement, which would probably be for the illegal operations, which I think are the biggest concern for all of us. I would so number one, I would say that I think there is a there is a conversation about, you know, from a legal standpoint, how to what are the implications of when we place this on the ballot and dedicated? Does it require a higher threshold to be adopted or are there some steps that we can consider? So I think I think a good friendly should be to inquire if the city attorney can come back with options on, you know, what are the implications of one or the other. Because what I don't want to do is, you know, we're kind of under a deadline to make sure we meet the appropriate, you know, timeline for the to make place on the ballot. So if you're willing to make your friendly more broad come back show some options for how we can dedicated obviously I think the city council would support if there was a resolution about public safety, but there might be other things in place and we just need to broaden it a little bit. Sure. Sure. And just to clarify, I mean, I know we're under the gun, which is why I had suggested we start discussing a competitive initiative a couple of weeks ago. But I understand we're under the gun and I'm not asking for a resolution or anything to come back at the next council meeting. I'm just saying at some point in the future, so so we can word it as broadly as you like. Maybe we can say at some point after this item, the city attorney to come back with options on how the city council can basically declare their intent for how the tax money. So as long. As they declare the. Sure, that's fine. Sure. And and as part of that city attorney, I think what Councilman Price is is is asking, is that a process that we put in place similar to Measure A where the council very clearly said where the intent was. But obviously, the you know, the measure itself was a general tax, but there was resolutions and there was other materials that were that were adopted that the council showed pretty clear intent about where the tax revenue would go. We can do that for you. But it is my understanding that that resolution of that option won't come back on August 2nd. It'll be some time after that. Okay. That's perfect. Thank you. We're going to. Councilman Pearce. Just want to thank you for being here. Guys, can you hear me? Thank you, Vice Mayor, for bringing this option to us. I just want to stress that I would also want to have that conversation about where the money goes to. I have one question for a city attorney. Can you clarify the county tax? Should that pass? Where would those funds go to where Long Beach have to apply or is it automatic? And I may ask the city manager to add in here. It's my understanding that these those funds will not automatically come to the city of Long Beach, that they will be dedicated special tax for homeless. And I believe that the city maybe there may be opportunities to apply for certain grants, but there is no guaranteed source of any revenue coming to Long Beach from the proposed county tax. Okay. And then I just want to stress I mean, I want to thank Tony Razor for her comments. I think looking at the state level around, you know, the lowest tax possible for medical is something that, you know, when we continue this conversation, looking at how many funds would come in, should we lower that amount to even a 4%, even though that that is something that's not in the original ballot measure? So I just wanted to make that comment. Okay. Thank you. So we have a motion in a second on the floor to approve the motion by Councilman Richardson, as I stated with the friendly by Councilwoman Susie Price. Members, please go ahead and cast for votes. Motion carries. Okay. Excellent. Thank you very much, counsel. We're going to go ahead and now move on to the next item, which is there's a request from Councilman Gonzales. What item would you like to hear? I'm sorry. That related to Harvey Milk Park, you said. Kick. Madam Clerk, item number nine.