On February 27th, about thirty cars lined the remote street just off Highway 1, an unusual sight in the otherwise tiny town of Leggett. Residents gawked as they drove past, straining to see what had brought the trove of vehicles to their sleepy town.
Approximately sixty attendees, predominantly male, created a traffic-jam of sorts; congregated around the entrance to the “Club House” created by 3rd Gen Family Farms COO and Founder, Brandon Parker. From the young, to the old; cannabis operators arrived, heralding Parker’s call to action.
The current economic crisis facing cannabis operators throughout California has left many small, legacy operators looking for creative ways to stay afloat while they await state and local counties to provide relief and reform to the industry, that they say, they built.
Only a small percent of cannabis operators have been fully licensed through the county. Most applicants were made to go through a resubmission process using the county’s online portal. The move was said to have been made to digitize previously paper applications to help the program staff move through the licensing process quicker. However, the implementation of the portal has not gone smoothly; the portal was launched later than anticipated and cannabis operators were not informed of the existence of the portal until the program sent out emails two weeks after the portal was opened. The vast majority of Mendocino cannabis operators are operating with an embossed application receipt; some operators have been waiting county processing for six years.
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