Long Beach will look at issuing special event permits for on-site cannabis consumption
Rapper and entertainer Snoop Dogg has already expressed interest in hosting an event in the city to celebrate his birthday in 2025.
After being derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Long Beach is again looking at allowing cannabis products to be consumed at special events and one of the first events could be Snoop Dogg’s birthday party.
Councilmembers Al Austin and Mary Zendejas resurrected a December 2019 request for the city attorney to craft an ordinance that would allow on-site consumption in the city and are again asking for the city to look at the feasibility of allowing them.
Austin said Tuesday that it’s a unique opportunity for the city to allow these special permitted events, something that could help make Long Beach, and potentially its convention center, more of a destination.
Mike Murchison, a lobbyist in the city, said that he was approached by Medium Rare, a company that works with celebrities to brand and advertise similar events across the country, with the hopes of getting an event at the Queen Mary permitted for Snoop Dogg’s birthday in October 2025.
“This is a unique opportunity for this particular special event,” Murchison told the City Council Tuesday. “It’s going to bring twenty five to thirty thousand people down there, which is about the size of a very large music festival.”
If the feasibility study is positive, the council could again request an amendment to the city’s municipal code to allow on-site consumption events, which would put Long Beach in a small group of Northern California cities that already do.
The study is expected to determine potential sites where these types of events could be held in the future as well as the number of events that would be allowed per year.
The struggling cannabis industry had been lobbying for city officials to open up Long Beach to on-site consumption as operators continue to struggle with high state and local taxes and an illicit market that eats into their market share.
Cannabis taxes have been a surprising contributor to the city's general fund generating over $13.3 million in the last full fiscal year but the city is projecting that cannabis will generate just a little over $11 million in the coming year.
The dip in revenue is largely due to a new cannabis tax cut program the City Council approved earlier this year that could see qualifying business operators cut their tax rates by up to four percentage points.
Pam Chotiswatdi, a director with the Long Beach Collective Association, which includes dispensary operators and other cannabis business owners across the city, said that the LBCA supported the idea but had some requests.
Chotiswatdi said that sales at these types of events should be processed through a local dispensary to help ensure the revenue benefits the city and that the application and approval process for business operators should be simple and streamlined.
The City Council is expected to be updated on the potential for on-site consumption events in the city within the next two months.
We need your support.
Subcribe to the Watchdog today.
The Long Beach Watchdog is owned by journalists, and paid for by readers like you. If independent, local reporting like the story you just read is important to you, support our work by becoming a subscriber.
