Hayward Planning Manager Jeremy Lochirco will give a presentation on the impact of legal cannabis businesses on the city at the weekly luncheon meeting of the Hayward Rotary Club at noon, March 3, at 1074 B St.
The city has been issuing commercial cannabis permits for seven years after it qualified 15 businesses in 2018 for either cultivation, delivery, distribution, manufacturing, testing and retail. Not all those businesses opened and last fall the city re-opened the application process in several categories.
In November 2016, state voters approved Proposition 64, legalizing adult use of marijuana. On that ballot, Hayward voters also approved Measure EE, authorizing a business tax on cannabis of up to 15 percent and creating a special fund for using that revenue.
The city’s cannabis tax is currently set at 6%, its sales tax is 10.75%, the state’s cannabis excise tax is 15%, and the state’s sales and use tax is 7.25%.
Taxation, regulation and unstable marijuana prices were blamed for the closing of 32 cannabis businesses in Monterey County. At the federal level, cannabis is considered a Schedule 1 drug, with numerous legal and fiscal restrictions.