After nearly recommending an 8 percent tax on marijuana sales for Assembly consideration, the City and Borough of Juneau Marijuana Committee decided instead to table the matter at its meeting Thursday.<\/p>\n
The committee members all seemed to favor the idea of an 8 percent sales tax, which mirrors that imposed on alcohol. Several committee members, including Debbie White, expressed fears that taxing marijuana sales too high would drive prices up and force people back to the black market.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would really caution us against getting greedy on the taxes,\u201d White said. She explained that she has family in Seattle, Washington, and said that the black market is thriving there for this reason. \u201cThe people who voted for this said treat marijuana like alcohol. We have an 8 percent tax on alcohol, and I\u2019m comfortable with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
All other committee members, including committee chair Jesse Kiehl, seemed to share White\u2019s sentiment. Kiehl has expressed his fear several times already about making decisions that will push people back into the black market, and he made the point again Thursday. <\/p>\n
\u201cUltimately we\u2019re Americans, and we like a bargain, so if you can get it cheaper, people often do,\u201d Kiehl said.<\/p>\n
Though committee members seemed to agree on the 8 percent sales tax, they were unsure about how the city should levy the tax. They asked City Attorney Amy Mead to explore their options and report back to the committee at it\u2019s next meeting in November.<\/p>\n
The committee also tabled discussion regarding whether the city should require licenses specifically for marijuana businesses. On this topic, the committee was split. Some members argued that requiring city licenses specific to marijuana businesses would increase the city\u2019s ability to regulate the industry. If businesses failed to comply with code, the city could pull their licenses, the pro-license contingent of the committee said. Kiehl and fellow committee member Mary Becker stood on this side of the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems to me that it would be easier if you have a license to pull than to take them to court,\u201d Becker said.<\/p>\n
Other committee members, however, argued that requiring an additional license \u2014 marijuana businesses will already have to obtain a state license to operate \u2014 is an unnecessary measure.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are business people; they\u2019re not criminals, and I think we need to treat them like any other business in Juneau,\u201d said committee member Dennis Watson, arguing that the city should not impose any additional licensing requirements for marijuana businesses. White and committee member Bill Peters also took firm stances against requiring city licenses.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re creating a whole other level of bureaucracy that you don\u2019t need,\u201d Peters said.<\/p>\n
And according to Mead, he isn\u2019t wrong. Mead said that the city could force compliance without licenses. In fact, the process is similar if the city decides not to require licenses.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe license still requires hearings and court actions,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s somewhat of the same process.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After nearly recommending an 8 percent tax on marijuana sales for Assembly consideration, the City and Borough of Juneau Marijuana Committee decided instead to table the matter at its meeting Thursday. The committee members all seemed to favor the idea of an 8 percent sales tax, which mirrors that imposed on alcohol. Several committee members, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-17879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17879\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17879"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=17879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}