Another California town may allow huge marijuana grow

The central California hamlet of Hanford, just south of Fresno, may become the state’s latest cash-strapped municipality to find refuge in the immense tax benefits from the cannabis industry.

Town leaders are reportedly “inching toward” permitting one of the largest indoor cannabis cultivation operations in the state, according to the Fresno Bee, signaling that more MJ businesses are finding allies in small burgs that view the industry as an economic driver.

Purple Heart Patient Care, a medical cannabis company based in the San Francisco Bay Area, is hoping to retrofit a 1 million-square-foot industrial park in Hanford into an immense marijuana grow, the Bee reported. And the Hanford City Council this week asked staff to draft an ordinance that would allow the project to move forward.

The owner of Purple Heart said the project would result in the hiring of 1,100 workers and the production of roughly 180,000 pounds of marijuana annually, according to the Bee. The cannabis produced at the grow site would be distributed to dispensaries elsewhere in California.

While Hanford would continue its current ban on cannabis retailers, the cultivation operation is projected to bring $14 million in tax revenue to the municipality.

A similar move was made last summer by the debt-burdened town of Coalinga, which decided to sell an out-of-use prison to an MMJ oil extraction company.