THE LBCA - Long Beach Collective Association
Since 2009
LBCA HISTORICAL
TIMELINE
2022 - Current Events
Local cultivation tax elimination, retail tax reduction, equity licenses, cannabis events and lounges, and expand education.
2018
The LBCA hires its first staff and creates cannabis education for the community and a presence on social media and website.
The City of Long Beach writes an adult-use cannabis ordinance that expands sensitive use buffers and green zones which lessens property opportunities for future cannabis licenses outside of those issued under the medical cannabis ordinance.
The adult-use ordinance also establishes a path for cannabis license ownership for persons impacted by the war on drugs.
The Long Beach city council votes in favor of the adult-use ordinance
7-1.
2019
Building facilities and starting operations, the members of the LBCA re-organizes and begins cannabis policy clean-up efforts.
With the new adult-use ordinance taxes, the supply chain licenses of testing labs, manufacturing, and distribution has a difficult time of opening due to a local tax of 6% on top of the enormous state taxes already gouging budgets.
The LBCA led efforts to pass modernization of taxes, reducing taxes from 6% to 1%.
“1% of something is better than 6% of nothing,” Greg Lefian, LBCA Board, founder of CPRC
The LBCA introduces city council discussion regarding cannabis events regulations.
2020
As the taxes are reduced on the supply chain, more cannabis operations are able to open, hire people, and begin operations.
Covid begins to shut down society. However, the LBCA initiates protective measures before city guidelines to keep employees and consumers safe by implementing mask requirements and safe distancing.
Members advocate at the local and state level to implement cannabis workforce as essential workers to provide products for patients and the community in crisis. The LBCA advocates for curbside pick up.
Due to the Covid lockdowns decreasing city revenue, the city looks to increase cannabis retail taxes to fill the gap.
The LBCA sends the city a recommendation to increase cannabis retail hours instead of increasing retail taxes.
Despite opposition, the city council agrees with the LBCA and votes to increase retail operations by two hours instead of a retail tax increase that would have only been a direct increase to patients and consumers.
2021
LBCA enters conversations and discussions at the state policy level and helps tax and testing parity for incoming hemp industry
Locally, the LBCA pilots an 8-week Introduction to the Cannabis Industry at Long Beach Community College workforce training department.
After meeting weekly for 7 months, The LBCA Equity committee sends recommendations to the city in March 2021.
The city released the tax revenue from increasing retail hours in 2020, they found that as of June 22, 2021, a total of $8,367,000 had been collected in cannabis business license tax
revenue, including activity during the extended hours of operation.
With three months
remaining in the fiscal year, they estimated that 2021 cannabis revenues at $9,237,523, which is $1.25 million higher than the 2021 budget estimate, $652,472 more than the estimated revenues from a 1 percent tax increase, and $952,472 more than estimated revenues from a 0.5 percent tax increase.
2014
The Long Beach Cannabis Task Force, created by the city, carried out a city-wide
study. The Cannabis Task Force Included former law enforcement, federal judges, and other community residents including members of the LBCA
2015
Long Beach cannabis task force provided a recommendation for
cannabis regulation to city
council
City Council Votes 5-4
AGAINST moving forward with cannabis regulations in the City of Long Beach
2016
LBCA partners with UFCW - Unites Food and Commercial Workers Union to gather another 50,000+ signatures for a Medical Marijuana initiative for Nov. 2016 ballot.
BALLOT INITIATIVE MM
Reached the Nov. 2016 with enough signatures ballot
AND passed with 60% of
Long Beach voter support.
At the same time, the state-wide, California Prop 64 for adult-use & decriminalization
passed on the same ballot
with 61% of Long Beach voter support.
2017
June 27, 2017 Governor Brown signed the Medical and Adult Use Cannabis Act combining medical and adult-use regulations in the state called MAUCRSA
At the end of Sept. 2017, the City of Long Beach begins to open their first legal medical dispensaries, while the LBCA educates on adult-use cannabis and decrease stigma in the community.
While the city gears up about adult-use, they issue a 6-month moratorium on adult-use cannabis operations.
2009-2010
The LBCA educated city staff and elected and broke stigma as much as possible for the times. Education helped the city to move forward with ORDINANCE 5.87 in 2010
The first ordinance allowing cultivation & dispensing of Medical Marijuana in the City of Long Beach during state-wide Prop 215 voted in by California voters in 1996.
2011
The Long Beach Collective Association officially becomes a cannabis trade organization and establishes as a 501(c)4 to advocate for safe access and fair business policy
2012
Pack Vs Long Beach lawsuit closed the doors on cannabis operations on August 12, 2012.
Many patients were left to fend for themselves. Members of the LBCA turned their facilities into campaign headquarters, leading organizing efforts to
bring legal cannabis
operations back to the city.
2013
Collaborating efforts with supporters, patients, and supporters in the community, the LBCA collected 50,000+ signatures to place a medical cannabis initiative on the ballot.
The City Clerk office deemed 18 signatures were invalid, disqualifying the ballot.
The initiative did not make the 2014 ballot.