San Benito County has taken another step in establishing a cannabis industry in unincorporated portions of the county. A Feb. 5 vote by county supervisors established the fees that commercial cannabis producers will pay when trying to open their doors.
The fees total $10,650 and are meant to cover the cost to complete each phase of the application, with four phases in all. Developing the fee schedule had been a drawn-out process, with staff taking direction from the former supervisors on how to proceed.
Fees are not meant to contribute revenue to the county, but rather cover costs of whatever service is being provided, like the cost to conduct background checks or zoning verifications.
If a business withdraws its application at any time during the process, it will receive a reimbursement for the phases that haven’t been completed. If, for example, the owner of a potential cannabis business doesn’t pass the necessary background checks, the business will have to pay for that portion of the process, but the remainder of the $10,650 will be repaid.
District 3 Supervisor Peter Hernandez cast the only vote against the cannabis fee proposal. Supervisors Mark Medina, Anthony Botelho, Jim Gillio and Jaime De La Cruz all voted to approve the fee structure. The approval came two months after supervisors had voted to allow cannabis cultivation in unincorporated parts of the county.
The December vote allowed six cannabis business permit types: cultivation, manufacturing, testing, distribution, microbusinesses and out-of-county retail. Microbusinesses are a combination of cannabis operations that include cultivation, manufacturing, distribution and retail. Out-of-county retail sales would allow cannabis delivery services to deliver retail cannabis to customers in neighboring counties.
Hollister, San Juan Bautista and Monterey County allow cannabis cultivation and sale. Hollister City Council may consider amending its cannabis ordinance in the coming months, but the city still only allows medical sales. Unincorporated San Benito County now allows commercial production, but no sales of any kind at this time.
Victor Gomez, cannabis lobbyist and president of Pinnacle Strategies, spoke on behalf of many cannabis businesses at the Feb. 5 meeting and said he and his clients were pleased with the fee structure. Gomez told the Free Lance that the reimbursement policy was reassuring to many prospective business owners. He compared the fee structure to Hollister’s, which does not repay fees if the process isn’t completed.
He said Hernandez’s dissenting vote wasn’t a surprise as the new supervisor has been verbal about his feelings against having the industry in Hollister during his campaign. “The counties been very transparent on the fees that they’re proposing,” said Gomez.
Ultimately, Hernandez told the Free Lance he couldn’t support the fees because he didn’t feel the structure accounted for changes in the industry. He said he did not feel assured that the county breaking even on the application process meant the same would be true in the coming years.
Hernandez said, “it doesn’t seem to be as big of a benefit to our community as people position it to be.”
