Snowflake Town Council Eliminates Marijuana Business License Fees
Snowflake Town Council Eliminates Marijuana Business License Fees
The Snowflake Town Council eliminated the business license fee for marijuana cultivators in their June meeting as part of the update to the Town’s comprehensive fee schedule. The Council unanimously approved the update 5-0. Mayor Johnson and Councilmember Perkins were not present.
The previous license fee structure for medical growers called for a fee anywhere from $3,000 an acre to $30,000 an acre. In 2020, the Town collected $303,752.00 in revenue for medical marijuana business license fees. Copperstate, the marijuana grower who purchased the tomato greenhouse, currently has a 40-acre greenhouse which would mean that if in full production, their license per year could have been up to $800,000 per year pursuant to the business license fee schedule.
Snowflake’s medical marijuana business license fee structure was put in place after the Arizona Attorney General’s Office determined that the Town of Snowflake may have violated the law when the Town approved special use permits to Copperstate and Mountain Time, the two marijuana growers in Snowflake.
In order to use the greenhouse as a marijuana farm, Copperstate applied for a special use permit in 2016. As part of that special use permit process, the Town and Copperstate negotiated a scaled fee to be paid by Copperstate to the Town depending on the number of acres in production. Ultimately, the Attorney General concluded that since the fee was essentially a tax and since the tax was specific to Copperstate and not medical marijuana growers as a whole, the tax violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Arizona Constitution. The Equal Protection Clause essentially means that a government body has to treat similar entities the same. Because the Town treated the two medical growers differently and differently from any other potential medical growers, the Attorney General concluded that Snowflake may have violated the Constitution.
As a resolution to the potential violation, the Town removed the fee schedule from the agreement worked out with Copperstate and then re-approved the special use permit. A few months later in 2017, the town adopted a uniform business license fee schedule. The new fee schedule treated all medical marijuana growers the same thereby fixing the concern the Attorney General had. The adopted fee schedule essentially codified the fees that Copperstate and Mountain Time previously negotiated. Because it was part of the fee schedule, those fees would apply to all marijuana growers including if any new ones were to come to town.
Now, the Town Council has decided to remove those business license fees for marijuana growers. The business license fees for all other types of commercial or retail businesses remain in place. Their fees, however, are dramatically less at only $20 per year. The justification to remove the marijuana business license fees provided to Council by town staff was simply “business license fees for medical marijuana are no longer needed.”
Although not voiced by the Town of Snowflake, Proposition 207, the recreation marijuana proposition, which was passed in November 2020 by the voters of Arizona, does limit the ability of municipalities to levy or collect additional taxes other than the ones which the proposition outlines.
It should be noted that although this marijuana business license revenue stream no longer exists, the Council did approve a developmental agreement with Copperstate earlier this year, which will pay the Town $400,000 per year for ten years.
This Newsletter Is Brought To You By…
Stop paying the power company!!! Let the sun pay your bill! Positive Solar is offering zero down options to get solar at your house. Contact them today at 536-7867 for your free quote!
ADVERTISE WITH US
Interested in advertising with The Silver Creek Herald? Email us at silvercreekherald@gmail.com. Our readers are coming directly to each article specifically. Your ad will be seen by our ever growing audience.