Coachella awarded $500,000 cannabis equity grant

Coachella has been awarded a $500,000 “local equity grant’ from the Bureau of Cannabis Control.

“The City of Coachella’s Cannabis Social Equity Program aims to provide financial and technical assistance to small business applicants from communities with high levels of poverty or a history of drug arrests,” wrote Mayor Steven Hernandez in a news release from the city.

Coachella is among ten jurisdictions awarded an equity grant from the BCC.

The grant will be used “for commercial cannabis equity programs that focus on inclusion and support of persons and communities that were negatively or disproportionately impacted by cannabis criminalization,” according to the city’s news release.

The grant’s funding was secured through the authority of the California Cannabis Equity Act of 2018.

KESQ