“Community benefit” money paid by operators of cannabis businesses in Contra Costa County should go to the specific communities in which those businesses are expected to begin operating in the near future, county supervisors said Tuesday.
Seal of Contra Costa County.
The Board of Supervisors didn’t go into deep detail on how those community benefit funds would be divvied up, but they said the specific expenditures would have to be approved by the board.
In December 2019, the supervisors chose four businesses to apply for storefront retail cannabis businesses, and seven more to apply for land use permits for commercial cannabis cultivation.
Six of those proposals, including all four of the prospective storefront operations, included proposed financial “community benefit” contributions, in part to help compensate from potential problems created by their presence there.
If each of those six operators ultimately opens for business, after several years, the total annual amount of community benefit money to be received by the county could be as high as $650,000 a year, above and beyond revenue the $2 million to $4 million the county would get from its cannabis business tax, sales tax and other sources.
