The Black Cannabis Industry Association (BCIA) urges you to support legislation enacting an equity assessment on non-equity licensees. The MRTA was drafted with equity in the marketplace as a cornerstone of its approach to licensing adult use cannabis. Among its many achievements, the MRTA required a Chief Equity Officer, authorized reduced fees for equity applicants, authorized low or zero interest loans to equity licensees, created an incubator program to assist equity applicants and placed restrictions on license transfer to prevent exploitation and abuse.
Critically, the MRTA also requires non-equity applicants to produce a social and economic equity plan. The Office of Cannabis Management has gone to great lengths to achieve equity in the marketplace; however, for various reasons, this critical provision of the MRTA is not being enforced.
We suggest a different approach. Instead of requiring non-equity licensees to develop and conform to a plan, the most direct way the industry can support equity licensees is through direct financial support. We are proposing, and urge you to support, legislation that would enact an assessment on gross receipts on non-equity licensees. Such assessment would fulfill the MRTA’s requirement of a social and economic equity plan and provide real, and continuing support for equity applicants.
Direct financial support is the most straightforward way to ensure that, as our market grows, resources remain available to disadvantaged populations. It incentivizes non-equity applicants to partner with disadvantaged populations. It provides tangible support to the programmatic goals and objectives of the MRTA and the Office of Cannabis Management. And importantly, it places funding at the heart of the equity promises made by the MRTA.
We hope that you can support this important legislation.
Musa Zwana
BCIA Inc., Chair
SEE PROPOSED AMENDEMENT LANGUAGE BELOW.
The tax law is amended by adding a new section 496-d, to read as follows:
§ 496-d. Equity assessment. Licensees under section seventy-two of the cannabis law that do not qualify as social or economic equity licensees under section eighty-seven of the cannabis law, shall be subject to an annual assessment of one-half of one percent. Such assessment shall be levied on the gross annual revenue of the licensee reported on the licensee’s annual tax form. Such assessment collected by the department of taxation and finance shall be transferred into the cannabis revenue fund established by section ninety-nine-ii of the state finance law and shall be used to promote initiatives that encourage licensure or provide financial assistance, including but not limited to, grants or awards, to individuals and businesses that qualify as social or economic equity licensees under section eighty-seven of the cannabis law. Assessments under this section shall satisfy the requirements of section sixty-four of the cannabis law.
§ 2. This act shall take effect immediately.
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