Oakland council calls for changes in pot permit equity program

Cannabis experts and their allies packed Oakland City Hall for a raucous public hearing Monday night, at which the City Council voted to re-craft a set of controversial pot laws it passed in May. After a four-hour debate, the council voted 4-3 to direct the city administrator to write new laws and significantly revise an equity permit program that sets aside half of Oakland’s pot permits for ex-convicts and a small number of East Oakland residents. Sponsored by Brooks, it reserves half the city’s permits for people who fit a narrow set of criteria: either they were jailed on marijuana convictions in Oakland within the past decade or they have lived for at least two years in a designated East Oakland police beat that saw a high number of marijuana arrests in 2013. Brooks said the intent of the program was to benefit people whose lives were disrupted by drug-related prosecutions and incarceration. Critics say the program is too restrictive and would choke off the city’s pot trade amid an anticipated boom, now that California voters have approved Proposition 64, the ballot measure to legalize recreational pot in 2018. After hearing these arguments, several council members expressed regret for the May vote, and three of them — Kalb, Guillen and Campbell Washington — pushed an alternative proposal that would offer loans, tax incentives and expedited permits to perceived victims of the war on drugs, without constricting the industry and the tax money it could bring. “In the context of repression, prohibition and confusion at the state and federal level, Oakland made it work,” said James Anthony, a lawyer who helps fledgling marijuana entrepreneurs start their businesses. Yet some praised the equity program as a means to correct past racial injustice and prevent African Americans and Latinos from getting left behind once the industry goes above ground. “My business does not want to leave Oakland, but the equity permit program in its current form would create an impossible situation for us,” said William Roberts, a lab manager at the East Oakland cultivation facility Dark Heart Nursery.