RIVERSIDE — The Ohio Senate is considering a bill that would change recreational marijuana law in the state.
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Currently, cities that allow legal marijuana sales get a big chunk of the tax money. City leaders told News Center 7 that they’re relying on that money.
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From the start of adult-use marijuana sales last August to January 25, Ohioans have spent just shy of $300 million on it. The state takes 10 percent of those sales with a tax. The law says that 36 percent of the tax money goes to the cities with adult-use dispensaries.
Senate Bill 56 would keep that money with the state.
In Riverside, City Manager Josh Rauch said the proposed bill is “problematic on a number of fronts” for local governments.
“We’re sort of relying on these funds,” Rauch said.
Riverside houses two adult-use dispensaries. As reported on News Center 7 at 5:00, the revenue would be used the fund their fire and police departments, among other things.
Rauch wasn’t able to say how much money the city was expecting but over in Beavercreek, a city with only one dispensary, the city manager told News Center 7 they were expecting $150,000 on the low end. If the bill passes, they would not get that money.
“If the state takes that money away, it just increases the tax burden for our own residents and kind of cuts against the way that the language that everybody voted on a couple of years ago is actually written,” Rauch said.
City officials in Riverside, Piqua, and Beavercreek all told News Center 7 they were not in favor of these changes.
Rauch also said it’s dangerous to speculate, but conversations around allowing adult-use marijuana sales in their city may have been much different had they known about this change.
His hope is that lawmakers in Columbus realize the impact this change would have on cities across the state.
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s office sent News Center 7 a statement saying “voters approved it in a manner subject to amendment by the general assembly.”
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