San Diego goes to court to collect marijuana business taxes

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San Diego filed what appears to be a first-of-its-kind lawsuit to force a local cannabis grower to pay taxes the city says the business owes.

Grizzly Peak Farms, which is based in Oakland, owes San Diego roughly $10,000 in unpaid city taxes for marijuana products it delivered to retail shops in the city between January 2018 and June 2019, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

The cannabis came from the company’s Oakland cultivation facilities between January 2018 and June 2019.

The owner of Grizzly Peak Farms told the newspaper the lawsuit was the result of a misunderstanding and that the tax bill would be paid.

“It really kind of slipped through the cracks,” owner Dave Gas said. “It’s legitimate, but it’s a weird city tax. We never heard about it, so it was weird to us.”

The case illustrates that the city intends to enforce its tax policy, which some in the cannabis industry have described as “double taxation” for businesses that aren’t headquartered in San Diego.