When SPARC CEO Erich Pearson saw the local Hispanic community in the Sonoma Valley suffering from the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, he leveraged the company’s relationship with La Luz, a nonprofit organization that provides resources to the local Latinx community, to hire out-of-work farmers for SPARC’s outdoor cultivation operation in Glen Ellen, Calif.

“We’ve been friends with La Luz for a while,” Pearson told Cannabis Business Times. “We just reached out to them and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got an addition to our farm this year, and [we know] you’ve got some folks that are out of work.'”

Photo courtesy of SPARC

SPARC, a vertically integrated cannabis operator, has a few acres of outdoor cannabis cultivation space in Glen Ellen, with use permits pending for greenhouses and a nursery. The company also operates a processing facility co-located on the farm in Glen Ellen, as well as a second processing facility at its corporate headquarters in Santa Rosa. In addition, SPARC runs five dispensaries—three in San Francisco and two in Sonoma County—with the first stores open since 2007.

The company has supported La Luz’s charitable efforts in the past, particularly during the fall season, when SPARC purchased tickets for families to attend Halloween events at local farms.

Much of the local Latinx community has been laid off due to the shuttering of the restaurant industry in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Pearson said. “There are a lot of people who work in kitchens who are out of work. A lot are from the ag industry [or] the grape industry.”

This inspired SPARC to work with La Luz to hire 10 workers for its cultivation operation in Glen Ellen.

“I think we’ve seen a disproportionate disruption in their community, … so it’s nice to be able to reach into that community and help out,” Pearson said. “It makes a big impact if you can hire 12 or 15 folks.”

The new hires are currently being trained and integrated into the SPARC team in collaboration with La Luz, and Pearson anticipates bringing on more displaced workers in the fall to help process this year’s harvest.

“Anybody who’s out of work deserves a job,” he said. “I think this community in particular, the immigrant community, has had it worse off through COVID, [and] those are our neighbors. Those are our community members."

The New Jersey Assembly passed a cannabis decriminalization bill June 18 that would reduce the penalty for the possession, manufacture and distribution of up to two ounces of cannabis to a $50 civil fine.

The legislation would also establish a virtual expungement process for past cannabis-related convictions.

Under current law, the possession or distribution of between one ounce and five pounds of cannabis is punishable by three to five years in prison and fines of up to $25,000, while possessing or distributing less than one ounce can carry an 18-month jail sentence and a $10,000 fine.

The Assembly approved A. 1897 in a 63-10 vote, sending it to the Senate for consideration.

Lawmakers in the Senate have introduced a broader decriminalization measure, S.B. 2535, which would reduce the penalty for cannabis possession of up to one pound to a written warning and a $25 fine for subsequent offenses.

RELATED: New Jersey Lawmakers Consider Two Cannabis Decriminalization Measures

Meanwhile, the New Jersey Legislature introduced a resolution last fall to place an adult-use cannabis legalization question on the state’s 2020 ballot, and a recent poll conducted by Monmouth University found that 61% of respondents plan to vote in favor of legalization this November.

“MPP strongly believes cannabis should be legal for all adults, but decriminalization is a vital and necessary interim step,” DeVaughn Ward, senior legislative counsel for the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), said in a public statement. “However, we encourage the Senate to pass a stronger decriminalization bill. If the legislature fails to enact decriminalization, more than 30,000 individuals in New Jersey will face traumatic arrests and prosecutions while voters wait for Election Day."

After reaching a settlement with Maine last month in a dispute over a residency requirement included in the state’s cannabis law, cannabis operator Wellness Connection of Maine has filed a new lawsuit against Portland, which has included in its cannabis ordinance a residency bonus for license applicants who have lived in Maine for at least four years.

Wellness Connection, which operates dispensaries in Portland, Brewer, South Portland and Gardiner, along with its Delaware-based investor, High Street Capital Partners, filed a civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court June 15, alleging that Portland’s cannabis ordinance is “unconstitutional” and “discriminatory” to non-local businesses, according to a WGME report.

The lawsuit alleges that Portland City Council is violating the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits overly restrictive commercial regulations between states, by discriminating against cannabis businesses with non-resident ownership, the news outlet reported.

RELATED: Portland, Maine Approves Local Cannabis Ordinance

The new complaint comes after Wellness Connection filed a lawsuit in March to challenge the constitutionality of Maine’s residency requirement, which required every officer, director and manager of an adult-use cannabis business, as well as the majority of its ownership, to live and file taxes in Maine for a minimum of four years.

Maine eliminated the residency requirement last month after reaching an agreement with Wellness Connection, and shortly thereafter, the Maine Cannabis Coalition, a group of local cannabis businesses, filed a lawsuit against the state alleging that the Department of Administrative and Financial Services has violated state law by refusing the enforce the residency requirement, which was included in Maine’s Marijuana Legalization Act that legalized adult-use cannabis.

The lawsuit alleges that the Office of Marijuana Policy has no authority to abandon state law since it has not been struck down be a court or repealed by the legislature, and it seeks an injunction barring regulators from issuing adult-use cannabis licenses to out-of-state applicants.

In the meantime, Portland’s ordinance took effect June 17, WGME reported, and the city expects to receive business applications over the course of the next month.

Wellness Connection’s lawsuit asks the court for an injunction to bar Portland from awarding any dispensary licenses until a decision is reached in court, the Portland Press Herald reported.

“We were expecting this lawsuit and we are prepared to defend,” Portland spokeswoman Jessica Grondin told the news outlet.

In a unanimous vote on June 17, the Nevada State Board of Pardons Commissioners approved an amended resolution put forth by Gov. Steve Sisolak to pardon low-level cannabis convictions in the state, according to a press release.

The resolution pardons those previously convicted of the possession of one ounce or less of cannabis, and the Secretary of the Board of Pardons has been charged with creating an expedited process for those seeking pardons.

“Today is an historic day for those who were convicted of what has long been considered a trivial crime, and is now legal under Nevada law,” Gov. Sisolak said in a public statement. “Since the passage of Question 2 in 2016 and the decriminalization of possession for small amounts of marijuana, many Nevadans have had these minor offenses remain on their records, in some cases as a felony. This resolution aims to correct that and fully restore any rights lost as a result of these convictions.”

The move will pardon thousands of past cannabis-related convictions, according to the state’s press release.

“The governor and the members of the Pardons Board are to be commended for taking this proactive stance,” NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano said in a public statement. “Thousands of citizens unduly carry the undue burden and stigmatization of a past conviction for behavior that is no longer considered to be a crime. Our sense of justice and our principles of fairness demand that officials move swiftly to right the past wrongs of cannabis prohibition and criminalization."