Stevenson, Garrett
Subject: FW: Sweet Flower comments to the EDTech Agenda From: Tim Dodd
Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2022 10:25 AM
To: Flores, Valerie <[email protected]>; Reyes, David <[email protected]> Cc: Hampton, Tyron <[email protected]>
Subject: Sweet Flower comments to the EDTech Agenda
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Dear Ms Flores, Mr Reyes:
Please see below our comments to the EdTech Agenda for the second informational item 2.
As background, Sweet Flower is a commercial cannabis retailer pursuant to a license awarded by the City of Pasadena pursuant to a process adopted by the City to fulfill the will of the voters expressed under Measure CC. Sweet Flower commenced operations at 827 E Colorado Blvd. on April 15, 2022 and operates from 8am to 1 Opm seven days a week.
While not listed on page 10 of the report, Sweet Flower is proud to be part of and to support Pasadena's cannabis industry and has been involved in the public hearings and comment that shaped some of the report's findings. While we are broadly supportive of the report, we are concerned that some of the report's findings are generic or drawn from experience in other states and cities that may not be reflective of the complex cannabis market in Southern California.
Sweet Flower broadly supports the following recommendations in the report:
- Expungement - Sweet Flower has already funded an expungement clinic with the Pasadena Community Coalition and believes all operators should support expungement in the broader Pasadena community. - Community Reinvestment - we support parity across all operators in terms of financial contributions, local and minority hiring practices, local and minority contracting opportunities and local and/or minority owned products sold through the stores. We would be happy to discuss further what parity across the industry looks like in practice.
- Social Equity - we continue to support a robust social equity program in Pasadena, and support at least one license for social equity. Further, we believe there is room for more equity licenses if zoning code amendments are made to allow additional equity dispensaries to be located near or in communities in Pasadena, rather than deep within commercial districts.
Business Code - We also support the code changes to allow ready-to-drink beverages, to allow advertising consistent with state regulations, and to remove the automatic audit requirement while allowing cannabis businesses to be "auditable" Gust as any business is). These changes will place Pasadena's cannabis industry on par with LA and other neighboring cities.
1 Zoning Code - We support the zoning code amendment for a 10% deviation in separation requirements but ONLY for Social Equity licenses, on the basis that Social Equity operators will need and deserve such deviation. Social equity licenses, coming into the City, through no fault of their own, after commercial operators have already been established, deserve and will need the benefit of an automatic 10% deviation, and we support that deviation for those licenses, only.
Other points -
1) Mentoring - Sweet Flower has mentored numerous social equity companies and applicants in CA and NY. We would be happy to provide mentoring assistance in Pasadena if requested. 2) Cannabis commission - We also believe that care must be taken to provide pathways for commercial funding of social equity licenses in addition to public grants, fee breaks and waivers etc., while preventing predatory lending, landlord and investor practices. A Pasadena cannabis commission should be established to address these concerns.
3) Diversity - The report makes certain assumptions on racial and gender diversity, drawn from other states. Sweet Flower, as one of the three remaining operators in Pasadena, is, at last external audit (by the Fresno Economic Development Corporation), 80% diverse on a race and gender basis at the store level, and 90% diverse at the management level. Accordingly, as a cohort, our diverse employees occupy more senior roles and are paid more than our non-diverse employees. We encourage other operators to follow suit. 4) Labor practices - the report, without basis, assesses that operators should be encouraged to pay minimum wage plus 25%. As all CA cannabis businesses are required to have an LP A in place with a union, and most, like Sweet Flower, are negotiating Collective Bargaining Agreements now, we do not believe this is an appropriate or practicable suggestion, and is better handled as a matter of labor practice between the operator and the union.
Thank you for your consideration,
Tim Dodd
Timothy Dodd
CEO/Co-Founder
SweetFlower
10000 Culver Blvd
Culver City, CA 90232
SWEET l FLOWER
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