Vallejo Collectives Fight Back

(As of press time, the city’s decision on topics discussed here were yet to be decided on. An updated article with the outcome can be found here.)

When people say legalization in California is “inevitable”—they
should look at the swing city of Vallejo.

This month, the small, inland Bay Area city is moving to close
down all of its roughly two-dozen medical cannabis collectives as part of the
latest boom and bust cycle for medical cannabis in the bankrupt town.

On February 19, a coalition of 11 collectives in Vallejo marched
to City Hall and demanded to pay their fare share of taxes under Vallejo’s
voter-enacted Measure C from 2011. The impoverished town, which declared
bankruptcy in 2008, collects an estimated $700,000 per year in taxes from a 10
percent levy on medical cannabis sales. But in January, Vallejo’s
fundamentalist Christian Mayor Osby Davis led a personal campaign to ban all
collectives and refuse their tax revenue.

Davis failed on a 3-4 Council vote to ban, and instead the Council
voted to advance regulations on collectives for the first time. A pretext for
regulation includes every collective shutting down, Davis demanded. The Council
voted for all collectives to close, and then voted to stop collecting
voter-approved Measure C taxes.

It’s just the latest in an eye-rolling, ineffectual boom and bust
cycle for collectives in the conflicted town, which in many ways is a microcosm
of California. Golden State voters legalized medical cannabis in 1996, but
never created a state system to regulate its cultivation or distribution.
Conservative cities have since been loathe to acknowledge, let alone regulate,
the activity.

In 2008, Vallejo saw a blossoming of unregulated collectives at
the same time it went bankrupt from financial mismanagement in the run-up to
the Great Recession. Desperate for money, Vallejo voters enacted cannabis taxes
in 2011, but never got around to regulating clubs.

Instead, the city put a moratorium on new clubs in 2013, while
still taking their tax money. The moratorium was extended in 2014 and is set to
expire in April. Meanwhile, Davis re-started a 1930s-style moral crusade
against cannabis.

In remarks published by the New York Times, Davis equated
the “sin” of homosexuality to that of “drug addiction,” murder and child
molestation. Davis told the Times he wants to turn Vallejo into a
Christian “City of God.”

Plenty of Vallejo residents disagree. The city is mix of Bay Area
progressives, gays, ex-Navy, inland religious fundamentalists and low-income
ethnic hispanics, blacks and Filipinos. The black Christian mayor beat his gay
white male mayoral rival by a handful of votes in 2013.

“[Medical cannabis] is not a burning issue for [Vallejo
residents],” said collective lawyer James Anthony. “[But] they’re susceptible to this kind of fear-mongering by the mayor . . .
The people of Vallejo are kind of shell-shocked by life in Vallejo. It’s
economically devastated. The city was bankrupt. There is no economic activity,
and high crime and violence.”

Mayor Davis continues to work at banning collectives permanently.
But even if he did, it’s not clear what would change.

Vallejo Police aren’t going to be kicking in collective doors,
Anthony said. At worst, the cash-strapped city may spend two full-time staff
attorney salaries threatening landlords who rent to collectives. Collectives
could close, move, or just lawyer up. “They’ll
close down some. They’ll hope to scare the rest,” he said.

Meanwhile, Vallejo continues to be served by a fleet of medical
cannabis couriers, private caregivers, collectives and the thriving black
market. “It’s just more money for the illegal drug dealers that the Mayor
claims to be so concerned about,” Anthony said.

Vallejo could be collecting an estimated $5 to $10 million per
year if it enforced taxation and regulation on its existing clubs.