The Santa Cruz City Council will consider updating on Tuesday it’s cannabis business tax, a move that will require a vote of the people in the November 8 election to move forward.
The 7 percent cannabis tax, which received a commanding 82 percent support when it first went to voters in November 2014, is a tax whose approximately $300,000 in annual funds are used for general city purposes. The proposed changes are designed to better align the city’s tax with Santa Cruz County’s similar tax and to make small administrative changes reflecting definitions in the state’s three-bill Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act.
“The reason why we’re doing this — if the county hadn’t move to change theirs, we probably wouldn’t have changed ours, either,” Assistant City Manager Tina Shull said. “Since our code is very, very similar, nearly identical to the county’s code, we see a great value in consistency.”
