We sent a letter to Supervisors Haschak & Mulhereen asking for the cannabis excise tax issue to be discussed at the General Govt Committee.
My wife uploaded that letter to today's public comment ( see below).
We were told the Board of Supervisors needs to send it to the GGC for discussion. We respectfully request you do that.
Basically, our plea is
1. We need tax relief, ONLY charge Excise Tax on ACTUAL sales.
2. It should not be punitive, for a small business to remain small, NO MORE True-Up.
3. Other municipalities, Humboldt and Trinity Counties, have made tax adjustments.
4. Most Farmers I talk with have had to scale down, not scale up.
5. Please also consider lowering the Excise Tax from 2.5% to 1.5%, for 2027 & 2028.
I don't want to take up a lot of your time today, I just need you to refer this issue to the GGC
February 20, 2026
Dear Supervisors,
Below is the letter we planned to send and speak on in public comment, but now that the February GGC mtg is cancelled, we wonder if revising tax structure can be added to the agenda for the March GGC mtg.
Happy New Year of the General Government Committee. We are excited you are here, especially since having served before, there is no learning curve and we can jump right in.
Supervisors Haschak and Mulheren, you are both very aware of the unfair tax structure for cannabis, as you have both sponsored prior legislation on this issue. We appreciate your past efforts. and. knowing the reduction in fees is set to expire at the end of 2026, we need you to act again this year to find further tax relief in future years.
Already In 2026, Humboldt County has "repealed" the Measure S cannabis taxes. It seems they got creative and set the amount of a voter initiated tax to zero dollars. And Trinity County also recently reduced their cannabis tax by 80%. The state itself did away with the cultivation tax a couple years ago, thanks to our own Senator McGuire. And the Governor signed amendments last year that lowered the excise tax at retail. Many municipalities have since restructured, reduced, and repealed taxes.
In Mendocino, the minimum tax true up needs to go away. We should only be taxed on what is actually sold. While some folks lobbied you to scale up, we and many other farms have had to lower our canopy size from 10k to 5k just to stay in business. An entire class of people in this County have gone from self-reliant to public assistance in a very short amount of time.
We barely broke even in 2025 and the top three reasons are because of the excessive fees and tax, the lack of a working supply chain access, and the many cannabis-only barriers as a small farm that do not apply to other agricultural endeavors, at both the State and County level. There are actions the County can take to alleviate pressure on all three of those points, but right now, this request is focused on taxes.
We are now 10 years into adult use laws in California and policy is the main reason it is still not a fair playing field. it's a shame that even after the majority of farms from Phase 1 finally got annual licenses from the State last year, the number of active Mendocino licenses are still dropping because there have been many who can no longer continue, overwhelmed by what we outlined above. You know our story, we have expressed it many times at many government meetings. There are still so many hurdles to success.
We want to make sure the tax issue is on the BOS agenda sometime this year and we are willing to help. Just let us know what you need.
We sent a letter to Supervisors Haschak & Mulhereen asking for the cannabis excise tax issue to be discussed at the General Govt Committee.
My wife uploaded that letter to today's public comment ( see below).
We were told the Board of Supervisors needs to send it to the GGC for discussion. We respectfully request you do that.
Basically, our plea is
1. We need tax relief, ONLY charge Excise Tax on ACTUAL sales.
2. It should not be punitive, for a small business to remain small, NO MORE True-Up.
3. Other municipalities, Humboldt and Trinity Counties, have made tax adjustments.
4. Most Farmers I talk with have had to scale down, not scale up.
5. Please also consider lowering the Excise Tax from 2.5% to 1.5%, for 2027 & 2028.
I don't want to take up a lot of your time today, I just need you to refer this issue to the GGC
February 20, 2026
Dear Supervisors,
Below is the letter we planned to send and speak on in public comment, but now that the February GGC mtg is cancelled, we wonder if revising tax structure can be added to the agenda for the March GGC mtg.
Happy New Year of the General Government Committee. We are excited you are here, especially since having served before, there is no learning curve and we can jump right in.
Supervisors Haschak and Mulheren, you are both very aware of the unfair tax structure for cannabis, as you have both sponsored prior legislation on this issue. We appreciate your past efforts. and. knowing the reduction in fees is set to expire at the end of 2026, we need you to act again this year to find further tax relief in future years.
Already In 2026, Humboldt County has "repealed" the Measure S cannabis taxes. It seems they got creative and set the amount of a voter initiated tax to zero dollars. And Trinity County also recently reduced their cannabis tax by 80%. The state itself did away with the cultivation tax a couple years ago, thanks to our own Senator McGuire. And the Governor signed amendments last year that lowered the excise tax at retail. Many municipalities have since restructured, reduced, and repealed taxes.
In Mendocino, the minimum tax true up needs to go away. We should only be taxed on what is actually sold. While some folks lobbied you to scale up, we and many other farms have had to lower our canopy size from 10k to 5k just to stay in business. An entire class of people in this County have gone from self-reliant to public assistance in a very short amount of time.
We barely broke even in 2025 and the top three reasons are because of the excessive fees and tax, the lack of a working supply chain access, and the many cannabis-only barriers as a small farm that do not apply to other agricultural endeavors, at both the State and County level. There are actions the County can take to alleviate pressure on all three of those points, but right now, this request is focused on taxes.
We are now 10 years into adult use laws in California and policy is the main reason it is still not a fair playing field. it's a shame that even after the majority of farms from Phase 1 finally got annual licenses from the State last year, the number of active Mendocino licenses are still dropping because there have been many who can no longer continue, overwhelmed by what we outlined above. You know our story, we have expressed it many times at many government meetings. There are still so many hurdles to success.
We want to make sure the tax issue is on the BOS agenda sometime this year and we are willing to help. Just let us know what you need.
Thank you for your consideration of this matter,
Laura & Marty Clein