City of Seattle - City Council - Committee - Finance and Housing - Committee Meeting
(February 16, 2022) - Community Panel on Cannabis Equity

Cannabis Workers - UFCW - Equity
[ Event Details ]

Four panelists representing cannabis retail staff and social equity advocates briefed the committee on possible impacts of a city equity program on worker safety and advancement.

Here are some observations from the Wednesday February 16th Seattle City Council Finance and Housing Committee (City of Seattle - City Council - Committee - Finance and Housing) Committee Meeting.

My top 9 takeaways:

  • At the beginning of the meeting, Craft Cannabis Coalition (CCC) Executive Director Adán Espino offered a general comment about the value the cannabis retail sector placed on diversity, and called for existing licensees to be included in any discussion on the topic (audio - 2m, video).
    • During public comment early in the meeting, Espino stated that cannabis stores in Seattle were “deeply committed to diversity and we are proud of our strong track record of minority hiring.” He then cautioned that as cannabis businesses “are hurting right now, impacted by not just the pandemic, but…a pretty serious spike in crime and armed robberies,” it was troubling the group hadn’t been consulted on some ideas “being kicked around behind the scenes” that members felt “could cause very real harm, both to our businesses and to our workforce,” in particular “taxes or mandates.”
    • Espino conveyed a desire for CCC leadership to be a party to any discussion by city officials to “have all stakeholders present and ensure that the council won’t just rubber stamp a proposal without broad stakeholder input…instead of listening to our concerns in good faith.”
  • Committee Chair and City Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda introduced the issue of social and worker equity in the city’s cannabis sector, indicating the panel was the “first of many conversations” local officials intended to have (audio - 5m, video).
    • Thanking panelists for their involvement, Mosqueda explained city officials wanted to “step back” and take a “work session-like approach to hearing more about an area of interest.” She and City Councilmember Lisa Herbold, the Vice Chair of the committee, had been interested in learning more about the topic.
    • Mosqueda said the council had heard from “community members and workers in the cannabis industry for over a year” and councilmembers needed to better understand equity in the industry, partly because “we know there’s a conversation happening at the state level, as well.” As her committee handled “how we look at wealth and finances within the industry and how it could help us address equity concerns that have been raised,” Mosqueda indicated the committee’s members were open to hearing about “revenue mechanisms, regulation, dedicated fund sources, specifically for working to address…workplace and workforce issues that have grown” in the cannabis sector. Mosqueda anticipated more committee panels on cannabis equity, calling the agenda “just the beginning of the conversation that we want to have,” and the Finance and Housing Committee was one of many committees that might take action around “safety and workforce training issues as well as creating greater equity in our region and in this industry.”
    • Mosqueda made clear that panelists were “not representatives, necessarily” of the organizations they worked with, but their business titles had been included as a method of “orienting you to the type of work that they do in the industry.”
  • Zion Grae-El from Have a Heart Belltown introduced the subject of equity in the city’s regulated cannabis market with some background information on disparate enforcement of cannabis offenses against certain communities and the emergence of social equity programs in the sector (audio - 5m, video, presentation).
    • Grae-El began with a “few facts about the cannabis industry," highlighting how:
      • “In 2021, just over 60 cannabis stores located in Seattle sold over $185 million in cannabis products.
      • The median sales per month for a single location cannabis retail shop in 2021 was $484,807.” Grae-El mentioned that the location he worked at “on average, does double that."
      • “The most profitable single location sold over $12 million in cannabis products in 2021.
      • One retailer with five locations sold over $24 million in cannabis products in 2021.”
    • Finding that under the formerly illegal cannabis market “Black and Brown people were disproportionately targeted for cannabis arrests,” Grae-El contrasted how during the coronavirus pandemic workers in the cannabis space were “now essential.” Accounting for around 20,000 jobs in the state, Grae-El told the committee that cannabis workers had “few protections on the job.”
    • Grae-El explained that Weed and Seed, a federal anti-drug grant program still active in some regions, had been in place in Seattle but “targeted predominantly Black residential neighborhoods.” Nationally, “Black people were arrested at a rate of nearly four to one for cannabis offenses despite similar rates of use” as other populations.
    • Currently, “retail store owners in Washington are disproportionately White,” Grae-El remarked, and “Black people were largely left out of cannabis ownership opportunity" even as those from communities of color made up many of the “front-line workers” he’d encountered. Additionally, he mentioned that among front-line staff in the cannabis sector, "many are female."
    • Noting that there were cannabis equity programs underway in Portland, San Francisco, Sacramento, and Los Angeles, Grae-El said they provided “equity funding” as well as training “and social equity licenses.” Moreover, he pointed to "increased security measures" enacted by California officials as something to consider mandating for area cannabis operations.
    • Grae-El shared that in 2021 he’d been part of “a process of identifying top community priorities around cannabis” with the involvement of “over 40 community groups.” The group’s top three recommendations were:
      • “Invest in advancement, career growth, and ownership opportunities for Black, Indigenous, and people of color in the cannabis industry.”
      • “Increase training, benefits, and protections for workers in the cannabis industry.”
      • “Automatic record vacations” for cannabis offenses
    • Mosqueda voiced gratitude for the context from Grae-El and "direct connection" to the committee’s work which “actually mirrors some of the recommendations that you just had.” She mentioned a December 2021 (video, agenda packet) presentation from the Finance and Administrative Services Department “race and social justice initiative team” indicated work had begun on a “high-level program framework” between city departments "to help support businesses in developing work via the Office of Economic Development” although community partners and funding were still being identified and reviewed. Mosqueda understood that cannabis revenue disbursed to the City of Seattle was currently going into their general fund, but Grae-El’s and other’s input suggested this sum was insufficient to “adequately address the comprehensive items that are needed” (audio - 2m, video).
  • Dyneeca Adams, Freedom Project WA Advocacy Director and Housing Specialist, established that “expungement of cannabis felonies are necessary” (audio - 3m, video).
    • Adams cited a February 2021 ruling in the case of State v. Blake by the Washington State Supreme Court which found the statute criminalizing drug possession was unconstitutional as it negatively impacted a person’s right to due process by criminalizing “innocent and passive conduct.” She noted that Black people had been “2.8 times more likely to be arrested for cannabis possession than Whites,” and that these arrests were "the tip of the spear" for police and prosecutors to “target Black communities through programs such as Weed and Seed.” Practices like this “contributed to mass incarceration and, obviously, gentrification.”
    • Adams stated that felony convictions could negatively impact people “long after they have served jail or prison sentences” and that legalizing adult-use hadn’t been a remedy for most. “We all should recognize that having a cannabis felony conviction still impacts those who are currently incarcerated,” she reasoned, and that expungement of convictions for impacted persons needed to be “at the forefront of these conversations, and that they are leading this initiative.”
    • Adams explained that the Freedom Project was one of the organizations working to expunge records “through our Beyond the Blindfold [of Justice] initiative.” She encouraged any allocated funds be disbursed “into the community, and not through any outside organization trying to co-op” or “gather funds through our name.”
  • Key Porter, a Medical Cannabis Consultant, provided her first hand account of a cannabis retail robbery and advocated for ways to help retail workers and communities impacted by heavy-handed cannabis enforcement (audio - 7m, video).
    • Porter offered a bit of her background and education, including her “extensive management career in the unregulated medical/recreational ancillary cannabis market” before being certified to assist patients in medically endorsed retail stores.
    • She said, “two months ago, I was staring down the barrel of a gun” during an armed robbery from perpetrators who “didn’t want any cannabis products at all” but were after “all the cash in the shop.” Depending on the day, Porter said the business usually had between $30,000 and $100,000 cash on hand “with limited security, with minimal training requirements.” When a staffer tried to intervene, they “got pistol whipped several times.” She admitted to being concerned because she had a young son “five blocks up the street,” and worried what might have happened to him if she “potentially died.” Despite her experience as a medical cannabis patient and work “sharing genetics” between medical cultivators, it didn’t matter “that I had eight years in this industry” - she still faced death.
    • “My community has risked our lives for decades," Porter remarked, but the regulated cannabis sector lacked support, representation, “or even excitement about the BIPOC community.” Moreover, she had yet to see anyone targeted under cannabis enforcement receive a retail license. Having witnessed the cannabis industry “now moving from illegal to essential," Porter asked for "reform, restoration, and redistribution" of cannabis-generated revenue.
    • Porter described having participated in a “13 week program in California that works especially towards social equity applicants.” She said those running the program worked “hand-in-hand with you to make sure that they found…a location, vendors, a [point of sale] system, plenty [of] equipment.” Previously successful applicants would “volunteer their time to basically help the next generation of pioneers” get into the industry. In this program, Porter had also noticed relationships developing between applicants and existing cannabis sector businesses.
    • Porter advised moving forward on expungement of cannabis records, a cannabis “equity tax” to collect funds that would go back “into the communities that have been having the most effect” from the war on drugs, a city equity commission “to always get recommendations of what the community wants and needs,” and workforce development to help cannabis staff like herself. All of this could improve things “so people don’t have to have the same experiences I had.” 
    • Mosqueda thanked Porter and gave her condolences on the harrowing experience she’d lived through. She then noted that “sorry is not enough…you’re looking for policy solutions" (audio - 1m, video).
  • Cody Funderberk, Ponder Cannabis budtender, shared a story of their coworkers’ unionization efforts (audio - 5m, video).
    • Funderberk reported that the store they worked at had been robbed on January 15th and staff had been assaulted. While they wasn’t present, they confirmed there were “serious and pervasive” safety concerns among staff in the cannabis sector.
    • When they’d “studied cannabis businesses” at the Evergreen State College, Funderberk said they’d learned about “how Washington’s cannabis industry is dominated by privileged demographics, by White men, and the moral dilemma of creating a cannabis industry that further stratifies social classes.”
    • Joining the cannabis sector straight out of college, Funderberk had hoped to find “upward mobility and career growth" but Ponder didn’t provide the “type of training or advancement that I would need to bolster my success.” Having applied to a graduate program on medical cannabis from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, they asked their employer to write a recommendation to the admissions staff but “he refused to write one.” Funderberk attributed this refusal—as well as threats “to close the store” and sell the property—to Ponder’s owner John Branch following unionization by the store’s employees. Funderberk said unionizing had given them access to “a free college benefit” so that they could continue their cannabis-centric career education.
    • Job protection was another key concern for Funderberk, who asked for improvements to “strengthen successorship laws so that in the event of a change of owners, our rights as workers'' would persist. They said Branch had fired employees in retaliation for their unionizing, but ended up having to reinstate them along with back pay.
    • Funderberk called for protecting cannabis employee rights to collectively bargain in addition to establishing an equity fund to “directly address the larger, systemic problems under modern cannabis legalization.” They commented that they'd worked alongside members of the Black Freedom Project and the area chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in drafting their recommendations. Funderberk said training provided to staff through such a fund could “help to level the playing field and foster the types of career growth and pathways to ownership” that had thus far mainly been open to “a privileged demographic of wealthy White men.” As a leader in cannabis legalization, they saw no reason for Washington to “be one of the last states to address the equity challenges therein.”
    • Mosqueda acknowledged the inherent stress in facing workplace harassment, grateful staff at Ponder Cannabis “have union representation so that folks can speak up" (audio - 1m, video).
  • Grae-El provided his background and difficulties he’d had advancing in the cannabis industry before giving input on ways to improve safety and equity in Washington cannabis stores (audio - 12m, video).
    • Grae-El talked about being a “father of six” from Minnesota, having moved “shortly after the Philandro Castile situation” (an “African American man who was shot on Facebook Live”). Grae-El was shocked because he realized he “used to sell weed to this guy" when he’d lived in St. Paul near the school Castile worked at. Following Castile’s murder by police, he decided "I gotta get outta here" and purposfully picked Seattle “because it’s such a progressive place, and there’s so much opportunity.” 
    • Since moving to Washington, Grae-El had worked as a budtender because he had a felony conviction prior to moving to the state that limited his housing and job opportunities. A U.S. Army veteran, he’d “purchased my first home” on budtender’s wages and acted as a UFCW “union steward” for retailer Have a Heart, which he claimed was “the #1 downtown dispensary.” Grae-El had hoped to “use my credentials, especially since I had been working for Have a Heart” for two years at that point, but there hadn’t been “any type of opportunity” available to him. 
    • Feeling there were "a lot of things that need to improve" in the adult use cannabis space, Grae-El started off with safety concerns. UFCW members had been “working diligently” on a “proposal for safety measures” around retail operations which he said included “double door security entry." Observing that during many robberies staff were “overwhelmed at the door," Grae-El indicated the store where he worked had yet to be robbed, crediting practices at Have a Heart as “other stores don't carry that type of security.” He voiced a fear not so much of being hurt during a robbery, but that his military training would lead him “to defend myself and fight for my life,” a skill that was “embedded in me as a reaction.” Grae-El encouraged dedicated safety training for staff to prepare them as much as possible for the life-or-death situation.
      • During the WSLCB Board Meeting on April 27th, Director of Enforcement and Education Chandra Brady indicated that agency staff intended to announce a partnership with “a statewide crime prevention association” the following week to “provide training” for cannabis licensees “and their employees.”
    • Turning to “job protections," Grae-El said he’d worked for different companies in the cannabis sphere, including one that was “owned by a really young, 23 year old guy” who sold the store for “a better opportunity.” This created hardships once the new owners decided to “keep the management” and replace “everyone else,” and he asked for a regulatory barrier against the practice.
    • Grae-El mentioned conviction expungement and the litany of impacts a person faced, such as the implications of being a medical cannabis patient on “dependency proceedings” and parental custody rights. He wanted to ensure that record expungement could be recognized in these legal actions as well, feeling the issue was “often overlooked.”
    • Grae-El brought up the possibility of a municipal equity fund, explaining that the topic always brought to mind the situation where former pro-athlete Shawn Kemp was said to have Seattle's first Black-owned dispensary. Grae-El said he’d updated his resume in hopes he might apply to become “part of that operation” and maybe find more “upward mobility” in the industry. Although it was later disclosed that Kemp had owned “less than 5% of the company” bearing his name, Grae-el acknowledged that highlighting Kemp as an African American owner of a Seattle store showed the actual owners “understand the value of” social equity marketing. He was hopeful he’d see some “Black-owned success" related to cannabis, joined by “all people of color."
    • As for training, Grae-El observed that "medical has almost been phased out of Washington" and that a lack of access “funnels” patients into stores geared towards adult-use. As some budtenders lacked “top-level training” on medical issues, they were ill-equipped to assist patients with their stores’ sometimes “large catalogs” of cannabis items. Training could help to “maintain a standard" across the state, even if it was only a “starting entry-level of knowledge."
    • Mosqueda told Grae-El that many members of the committee were indicating their “seconding” of the policy suggestions raised by panelists to her. She was grateful for the “introductory framework” the group had given, commenting on her expectation that the committee would learn more about the “equity approach” in other jurisdictions in addition to their best practices for retail security. Mosqueda anticipated that councilmembers like herself and Herbold, who chaired the city’s Public Safety & Human Services Committee, would continue to work on the issue along with Council President Debora Juarez. She thanked other city officials for their involvement, specifying Mayor Bruce Harrell and Devon Alisa Abdallah “who's the director of Legislative Affairs,” Harrell’s external affairs liaison Gerald Hankerson, and Aretha Basu, Mosqueda’s Legislative Assistant and campaign manager (audio - 3m, video).
  • Councilmembers had several questions on a labor union equity proposal, retail security measures, zoning for additional retail allotments, and a city-controlled equity fund.
    • Councilmember Sara Nelson reported only “just now getting into the details” of the UFCW proposal, but understood it to involve “a tax on cannabis products" levied at the local level. She felt it could be “potentially regressive" by adding 25 cents extra on cannabis flower, “regardless of the quality.” Nelson saw that workers were “on the front lines” and vulnerable to “public safety threats” like robberies. She mentioned that Dockside Cannabis Co-Owner Oscar Velasco-Schmitz had proposed “hardening along the right of way to keep people from being able to drive cars into these buildings.” She wondered how much of the prospective training would be cannabis sector specific rather than addressing “the general deterioration of public safety because of increasing crime.” Nelson pointed to Cicerone Certification around breweries as one possible model to consider. She noted a “benefit of being organized is being able to negotiate with ownership” but wanted to confirm the concerns being shared could be “solved through this mechanism,” specifying expungements of convictions might necessitate county or state level action (audio - 3m, video).
      • Mosqueda called the panel a “step 1,” remarking that there was “no draft legislation” pertaining to the matter to date. The topic had been a “front line worker-led effort,” she commented, but the committee would “go through our own process" involving industry members and representatives from other cities. The panel they’d just heard had been “a request a long time in the making,” Mosqueda told colleagues, and there was “a longer policy conversation to be had” on cannabis and equity (audio - 2m, video).
    • Grae-El spoke up to "reflect on some of the points that I just heard" (audio - 4m, video).
      • Regarding communications with owners about worker safety training, he relayed that there were “some discrepancies right now" between labor and management. Grae-El pointed out how there was “no policy that requires” workforce education and that hiring qualified people, or training those already hired, was the prerogative of the employer. “People don't get their degrees and say we're gonna flock” to a recreational retail setting, Grae-El reasoned.
      • He then repeated his belief that double doors were the best security feature to require of licensees, as it might both stop entry and set up an avenue for requesting identification for anyone coming in. Suggesting that license holders “don't want to cough up this money" in their “frequently understaffed" businesses, Grae-El commented that what was being recommended should be able to be covered “by the revenue generated by cannabis itself.”
    • Funderberk thought it could make “more economical sense” for security requirements to be the duty of a store’s owners as police didn’t “prevent crime, they just respond to it after it happens.” Retailers needed “proper security measures up front,” they concluded (audio - 1m, video).
    • Nelson echoed the need for more safety measures around cannabis, believing that officials “dropped the ball on public safety." Prior to articulating “policy solutions,” she asked that the committee have “the problems defined" so members could better evaluate possible solutions. As for an “additional fee” covering what she termed “things that the union is maybe unable to, to win at the bargaining table,” Nelson pointed out the state excise tax on cannabis was “higher than any other state in the country and possibly, any other country.” As Chair of the Economic Development, Technology, and City Light Committee, she expected any proposal to have buy-in from existing retailers like CCC and adequately considered the “competitive disadvantage that Washington does have” compared to other legal states, and how that impacted available jobs and “benefits for workers” (audio - 2m, video).
      • Mosqueda emphasized the meeting wasn’t “a quizzing opportunity" for the community, but rather a chance to “understand the issues that are facing front line workers and especially the inequities in this industry” (audio - 1m, video).
      • Funderberk mentioned prior work in the California cannabis industry, offering their impression that cannabis items in Washington were generally “cheaper than pretty much any other state, so adding a nominal tax on cannabis products would not affect the cannabis market in a way that would deter consumers or prevent job growth” (audio - 1m, video).
      • Grae-El chose to “double down on" his call for a tax to fund workforce training, claiming that his store welcomed “customers from all across the world" who told him that their prices “were absolutely incredible.” He said some eight ounce products went for $15, but customers were willing to pay four times that amount for “the super top-shelf stuff.” Grae-El insisted this pattern held for cannabis concentrates as well, with prices so low "you can't even fathom" paying a similar amount in other states. In his experience, “the only place that can beat our prices is Oregon, and that’s because they have a severe surplus” (audio - 2m, video).
    • Herbold spoke up to “provide a little bit of additional information" around “an interdepartmental collaboration” on cannabis zoning for social equity businesses. Seattle was currently slated to receive two of those license allotments, she indicated, though members of Black Excellence in Cannabis (BEC) had requested “30 social equity licenses,” which was sure to require “some zoning changes.” Moreover, the city Land Use Committee might need to revise building code requirements, Herbold added (audio - 5m, video).
      • Having worked for the council on “much of the early zoning and building code requirements” for medical cannabis, Herbold noted these included security requirements and called the concept of “double security doors… brilliant.”
      • Stating that the city had received between $1.3 million and $1.4 million in cannabis revenue in the preceding year, Herbold expected to have “community partners” identified and contacted prior to establishing an equity fund.
      • As the Public Safety Committee Chair, Herbold had an interest in expunging records—which Seattle officials had previously undertaken for cannabis misdemeanors—but cautioned that municipalities could only take action on the offenses they enforced. She said “the universe that we could address" had been misdemeanor offenses between 1996 and 2010, but she remained interested in hearing what was being proposed in relation to expunging convictions which tend to leave documentation of someone’s offense while clarifying that their "actions are no longer crimes.”
      • Mosqueda was also excited to learn what Seattle leaders could do in the areas of expungement (audio - 1m, video).
      • Grae-El acknowledged “there is a difference" between vacating and expunging convictions. His comprehension was that there were “felony points” based on convictions that could count against someone “until seven years after the probationary period ends.” Grae-El brought up dependency proceedings for parents accused of being unfit based on recreational or medical cannabis use, finding it to be “a very large can of worms that I have no clue where to start” (audio - 2m, video).
      • Adams said that Freedom Project WA had a board member who had been tried as an adult at age 17 and sentenced to 30 years in prison. They were able “to go back, and be resentenced based on” State v. Blake, she remarked, and with time served the individual was “released immediately.” Claiming that Washington courts were “backlogged,” Adams reported that they wanted to find ways to make the expungement process quicker as there were “thousands of individuals who can also be re-sentenced and be released” (audio - 2m, video).
  • Mosqueda concluded the panel by promising more study and possible action on cannabis equity (audio - 2m, video).
    • Hearing from experts in other jurisdictions would be key, she posited, since “I don't want us to reinvent the wheel, I want us to learn from” others showcasing “great examples” of equity. Mosqueda was taking away three ‘Rs’ from the feedback they’d received: reform, redistribution, and restoration.
    • Mosqueda explained that she intended to find out more about applicants to the state social equity program “and the process” while collaborating with other city agencies on potential solutions. She concluded with a call for those listening to reach out to the committee with ideas as she wanted to make the stories and anecdotes they’d heard a step towards addressing inequities “and safety concerns that you’ve brought up.”
    • The committee’s next look at cannabis policies was on March 2nd featuring representatives from other city governments with equity programs, industry advocates, and a presentation by staff for the Seattle Department of Finance and Administrative Services.

Information Set