MENDOCINO CO., 10/11/25 – The Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development has announced the opening of the Cannabis Equity Grants Program for local jurisdictions, and the application portal opened today.
The Mendocino Cannabis Department is one of the local entities planning to apply for the grant program, according to Sara McBurney, the senior program manager of the department, which has received a grant from the program five times in the past and plans to apply each year.
The grants program includes $15 million in funding for the 2025 and 2026 fiscal years. Eligible local jurisdictions, including cities and counties, can receive up to $75,000 to develop a cannabis equity program or up to $3.5 million to fund equity applicants hoping to open businesses in California’s regulated cannabis industry.
The goal of the Cannabis Equity Grants Program is to reduce barriers to the legal cannabis industry by offering financial and logistical support to local governments and residents who want to start their own cannabis businesses.
“The aim of offering these supports is to aid the state in its goal of eliminating or reducing the illicit cannabis market by bringing more people into the legal marketplace,” according to the announcement from the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development.
The online application portal opened today and can be accessed by clicking this link. Applications are due through the portal by Dec. 8, 2025, at 11:59 p.m. Required documents and an application user guide can also be found by clicking this link.
In the past Mendocino county got the grant money but had to return it because they never used it.
Do you know what would really make everybody equal?
Lowering the tax rate on cannabis from 28% to 3%.
Reducing the amount of government manipulation of your property.
Not allowing overhead flights of military aircraft which psychologically attack growers.
Further grant money is a waste at this point. A complete overhaul of the tax and regulatory scheme that effectively made the move to a legalized market legally and economically impossible. The whole thing seems to have been designed to extract as much as possible from those who wanted to do the right thing while putting up so many obstacles that most could never hope to succeed.
The “barriers” were originally devised to squeeze as much compliance money as possible out of what looked like an unregulated cash cow to an ever-hungry government. Working at cross-purposes with itself, what a short-sighted boondoggle this has proven to be.
The very unpopular push to annex in Ukiah seems cut from the same cloth.