REDDING, Calif. — A proposal to raise the cannabis business tax is on the Redding City Council agenda.
At the March 4 council meeting, city leaders will decide whether to increase the business tax for cannabis businesses. The agenda item includes bringing the cultivation rate up from $3 per square foot to $10 per square foot of cannabis cultivation area. The retailer’s initial rate would also be boosted, jumping from 5% to 7% of gross receipts.
City of Redding Vice Mayor Mike Littau told KRCR the council wants the community’s input as they address a budget deficit.
“We have a deficit in the city of Redding of approximately $5 million, so we’re talking about some creative options of how to generate more money,” Littau said. “All this extra money comes into play for us to bring more officers back into the jobs, provide more support to the community for public safety, gives us an option to hire more firefighters.”
Laythen Martines is the founder of Sundial Collective and an owner of Nug X Sundial Collective.
He told the Northstate’s News, between the two cannabis stores, they’ve paid about $4 million back to the city of Redding in the four years they’ve been open.
He called the potential tax increase unethical.
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“That means we have to raise our prices by 2%, and if we raise our prices currently by even a dollar, customers go to different dispensaries,” Martines said. “They will go to Shasta Lake City.”
Littau said he hopes to meet the community’s needs while finding ways to help bring in more police officers and firefighters.
Martines shared that he believes the city’s budget deficit is due to inefficiency, saying a tax rate hike would only hurt local businesses.
“If they raise our prices, it’s not going to bring in more tax revenue,” Martines said. “We make less money, but we have to pay a higher percentage of that to the government, and you’re going to end up putting us out of business.”
He added, “If the city council does try to pass this with the amount of public outrage they’re going to see, it’s a crime.”
Littau said the council could vote to push this agenda item to later in the year, and Redding Mayor Jack Munns told KRCR he’s thinking through possibly suspending it for the time being.
We heard from a local cannabis dispensary founder and council members leading up to the March 4 Redding City Council meeting. Read More
