California passes law giving $100 million to cities--to help weed sellers get permanent licenses!

 
As a rare conservative economist one said, "If the Sahara desert was run by the federal government, in two years there'd be a shortage of sand."  

It's hard to imagine a business more guaranteed to make vast profits than selling legal marijuana, eh? But in the Peoples' Republic of California, legal weed sellers claim they're struggling to navigate the draconian, byzantine rules imposed by the state's moronic, corrupt Dem-controlled legislature.

That is, the legislature has imposed as many bizarre rules on selling weed as on every other business.  But for some reason the owners of pot "dispensaries" claim they're having a harder time figuring out the rules.  At least that's their claim.

But don't worry, the mandarins in Sacramento have a fix (in every sense of the word):  Last Monday the state legislature passed a bill giving cities $100 million in taxpayer money--to help the pot sellers comply with all the licensing requirements.

I swear I am not making this up!

See, when the state legalized pot, it handed out licenses like candy.  Because the legislators wanted to show how "woke" they were, they were particularly eager to give those lucrative licenses to blacks and hispanics.  You bet.  Very woke.

But there was a twist: the initial licenses--which required almost no regulatory paperwork--were only good for a year or so.  Anyone wanting to keep selling pot--making obscene amounts of $$--had to turn the temporary license into a permanent one within the first year.

Unfortunately, that process required a costly, detailed review of the environmental impacts a business has, and a plan for reducing any negative impacts identified.  You may be surprised to learn that stoners claimed they didn't know how to do this!  (Who could have guessed, right?)  So a new "service" formed, of people who called themselves "consultants" and would do the paperwork for the stoners.

As you could guess, most of the consultants were guys who had a brother-in-law who worked for the state licensing authority.  Nice.  And the fees were pretty hefty--cuz all dem pot sellers were making megabucks selling weed, so they could afford it, eh?

But not surprisingly, the pot sellers didn't want to pay the consultants OR jump through the legal hoops themselves.  As a result, as of April 82% of the state’s pot-selling licensees were still provisional, according to the governor’s office.

Now if you were in any other business--say, growing and selling almonds or avocadoes--and refused to jump thru the dozens of hoops the gruberment demands you negotiate to be allowed to work and pay your all-important taxes, the gruberment would simply shut you down and seize your assets.  But for some reeeally strange reason, the state didn't do this with stubborn pot-sellers.

You may wonder why the state didn't just yank the licenses of the non-compliant pot-sellers, eh?

The answer is probably bribery, but there's a superficially-plausible legal answer:  Taxes on legal pot sales in California brought in over half a BILLION dollars last year.

So when the pot-sellers refused to comply with the licensing regs (or claimed it was too hard), instead of yanking their licenses the legislature will simply give $100 million in taxpayer bucks to cities, to pay for the cities to hire more employees whose sole job will be to do the paperwork necessary to get the pot-sellers the permanent license required by the legislature.

A staggering $22 million of this is going to Los Angeles alone.  And to the surprise of no one, this $22 million grant program is endorsed by the mayor of L.A., Democrat Eric Garcetti.  See, the cities get city sales tax from all sales, so...

Interestingly, Garcetti wrote a letter to legislators pushing the bill that would give his city the money, and what he wrote is...crap:  He said the cash was “essential in supporting a well-regulated, *equitable*, and sustainable cannabis market."

Ah yes, "equity."  And "sustainability." Such wokie sentiments, eh?  Cuz if not for that $22 mill in taxpayer money, only the brightest pot-sellers would be able to get the required permanent license--a fact that might have a...how do they say it?  "Disparate racial impact."

And "sustainable"?  Is he worried about a pot shortage?  Oh, got it:  He meant keeping that huge sales tax stream flowing to the city and state.

So after the legislature and minions imposed the same kinds of costly, strangling regs on pot sellers that every other businesses has to comply with, the state is now going give $100 million to enable their buddies in the pot business to comply with the legislature's own regulations.  Yeah, dat makes sense.

It's liberal governance at its finest: "We put the same rules on pot sellers that we've put on every other business, but the pot sellers are refusing to comply, so we're going to spend tax dollars to do the license work for 'em.  But don't think it's YOUR tax money we're spending.  Nope nope nope. It's just part of the tax revenue from weed sales."

Hey, do ya think lawmakers would pay tax dollars to help a local mom-and-pop grocery store fill out license applications?  No?  Gosh, that's...odd.  Why does one business get tax dollars to help them comply with convoluted licensing regs, while another doesn't get that help?

I'm sure there's an explanation.