Legal weed is in the middle of a neat trick, establishing permanence while its present form dies.
If you’re just tuning in, the industry’s first crisis flirtation coincided with last year’s capital crisis. Then, in the throes of that crunch, came the P.R. meltdown that was the 2019 vaping ordeal. Compromised, California legal weed now contends with a lockdown that has it “on the brink of collapsing.”
Sacramento Bee/BisNow
- After legal weed’s initial sales spike and new recognition as an essential industry came the drab-yet-expensive workplace adaptations and deflating news of federal relief denial. The United Cannabis Business Association asked the state government to drop or extend license renewal deadlines. The answer was no.
- “You add in the economic conditions caused by [the coronavirus], and you’ve created an extinction event, regardless of whether sales go up or down,” says Amanda Ostrowitz, CEO of the regulatory data company CannaRegs.
Quick Hit
- Santa Barbara County is projected to have a shortfall of $3.6M at the fiscal year’s end. Without tax revenues from the cannabis industry, that deficit would be $20M deeper.
Coastal News - This week in the adventures of Salinas grower Paul King in Florida, King files a lawsuit in Santa Barbara alleging that the guy he’s accused of stiffing for $3M ruined his Northern California operation. Former NHL great Darius Kasparaitis manages to be involved.
The Real Deal
