Petersburg’s Gary Morgan built his limited marijuana cultivation facility Moog Droog from the ground up.
He said it cost him around $100,000, way more money and time than he anticipated.
Petersburg has a $25 excise tax for each ounce of marijuana sold from cultivation facilities. Morgan said the tax hasn’t been an impediment to the growth of his business.
“It’s not difficult whatsoever,” Morgan said when asked if Petersburg’s excise tax made it difficult for his business to grow. “In my opinion there’s no great incentive for local boroughs to have marijuana businesses in their borough unless they’re getting something from it.”
Morgan did say, however, that as marijuana supply catches up with demand, the excise tax may become a strain.
“Steadily we’ll see decreases in the price until it hits a plateau like some other states we’ve seen,” Morgan said. “I hope at that time we can revisit it with our local governments and come up with something that helps us stay competitive.”
In a presentation to the Haines Borough Assembly Monday, borough manager Debra Schnabel spoke to those price fluctuations.
“Due to scarcity, current prices are viewed as false and will not be sustained,” Schnabel said.
The assembly is currently considering a $5 per ounce excise tax on local cultivators but it directed Schnabel to look at other forms of taxation including sales tax.
Glacier Bay Farms manager Jason Adams asked the assembly to wait on implementing a local marijuana tax.
“I would ask that you guys wait a year and look at our income from the Haines Borough and how our cultivation facility and our retail store does before we make a plan on how much we levy a tax for,” Adams said.
Twenty-nine cultivators are paying the state’s $50 per ounce excise tax and total state revenues from marijuana now exceed $1.2 million, Schnabel said.
Hundreds of marijuana permit licenses are currently in review. Six of those are permits for licenses in Haines.