San Diego Moves Forward On Regulatory Fees For Dispensaries

San Diego— a city that has long had dilemmas
with regulating its burgeoning cannabis industry—has now issued  new rules imposing an annual minimum fee of
$1,100 on legal dispensaries in the city. 
The fees are pro-rated based on the size of individual businesses.

The fee will cover city inspections of
dispensaries, background checks, and the cost of imposing other regulations.
The new regulations also cover the beginning of a product labelling regime and
testing standards.

The city, which has recently moved to shut
down illegal dispensaries, has also issued new municipal guidelines and
rules.  Licenses can be revoked for
regulatory noncompliance.

Last February, the City Council voted
overwhelmingly to regulate the city’s dispensaries, allowing 30 in total to
operate within municipal limits.  It is
thought that over 100 dispensaries were forced to close as a result or still
managed to operate undiscovered. 
Actually keeping track of cannabis shops here has apparently been no
easy task for authorities.

The move also comes as California State itself
begins to line up for passing another attempt to regulate the recreational
industry in 2016.  California is the
oldest cannabis-legal state in the country. 
Voters successfully passed a ballot initiative in 1996, making the state
the first to legalize cannabis for either medical. Since that time, the state
has been repeatedly targeted by both federal raids and in-state efforts to
sharply curtail a vast and sprawling industry now almost two decades old.