Most people in the legal weed industry viewed the state of California's Cannabis Equity Grants Program for Local Jurisdictions as a good-faith attempt to right historical wrongs. And when Sonoma County applied for a slice of the revenue stream to pass along to qualifying businesses, it felt like that mission was being fulfilled locally.
But the first round of grant recipients may have triggered more bickering than backslapping.
Some small producers and people of color working in the legal cannabis trade claim they were left behind in the process, calling the county's qualifying criteria misguided and exclusionary.
"The goal was to achieve equity, which essentially is an attempt to ensure fairness and justice, by acknowledging that not everyone starts from the same place," said Natasha Khallouf, owner of Agricola, a cannabis farm near Penngrove. "However, this approach seems to be giving a bigger boost to those who were already at a more advantageous starting point."
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