Things clearly are changing. It will be enlightening to look back in a few years and see what has become of this whole legal-retail-marijuana issue. My guess is, it won't make much difference at all, and the various anxieties and fear-promoting scenarios that a few people have been posting in article comments will be all forgotten.

Mayor Siegel hit a nail on the head by mentioning that legal regulated selling is the antidote to black markets. Many people now forget how counterproductive it was when the US voted (99 years ago) to try to constitutionally ban most alcoholic beverages. Dubbed afterwards a "noble experiment," but more honestly a stupid one. It backfired in several ways, people got their booze anyway but via black markets, and eventually it led to the first US constitutional amendment ever being repealed.

Just as an exercise, substitute the word beer or wine for cannabis in the above story. Doesn't it sound ridiculous? Why does cannabis merit such crazy regulation and restriction when it is just an intoxicant equivalent to either beer or wine?

"when it is just an intoxicant equivalent to either beer or wine? "

If it were equivalent to beer or wine which can kill the user and is responsible for much more societal issues than cannabis, it would have never been legalized.

I do see your point, what makes it so special as to garner a big tax? What is expected with cannabis that hasn't already happened w/ booze, which escapes a special city tax. Our city resources are put to task each and every last call weekend night with the post bar fights DUIs and assaults.
Seems a bit blind to not request a special tax for all the alcohol related issues our city has to deal with...if we're throwing around special taxes.

Since I oppose the sale of addictive pot (not the politically correct label of "medical cannabis") I support a 100% tax on sales AND all deliveries and transactions within Mountain View. The idea is simple. Make it unprofitable for any pot dealers to sell or distribute within MV. Break their business models by making it too expensive for them to deal drugs here. The same holds true for RV dwellers. Eliminate their social programs, harass them with legitimate legal citations, and convince them to "move anywhere but Mountain View". Get them off of our streets and out of our neighborhoods.

The ship of legality "yes or no "has sailed. If your only goal is to be spiteful in legislation to try and block the will of 2/3rds of the voters, that doesn't add much to a constructive discussion.
Besides I'm not sure you understand the economics of how cheap unregulated pot is compared to regulated pot.
Plus there's the ability to legally grow it, so MV would be fostering a 100% black market, totally untested, untaxed, and unregulated as to who they sell it too. That's the model I DONT'T want to see in MV

I can see the cunudrum though: A vote for the tax is seen by everyone as a vote for a cannabis store, but a vote against the tax might make it easier for people who want to use it...what to do when you're trying to force your will of behavior upon others. It's a tough call. Vote! :)

The matter of whether it is wise to authorize marijuana sales or deliveries or to tax sales is different from whether marijuana should be legal for adults or persons over 21 to use or abuse. That is partly why most California and even Bay Area cities have not authorized sales. Marijuana may be much better than alcohol but it is not replacing alcohol. And remember, if you can, it is still illegal to possess or sell marijuana under federal law. Marijuana sellers may yet be visited by Trump-Sessions storm troopers - especially here in the DEEP BLUE Sate of California. Finally, as to the proposed MARIJUANA SALES TAX in Mountain View, how do you think that money MAY be used?
Clue: it is a general tax measure.

What is not clear to me, is whether the licensing of the 2 shops is contingent on a YES on the tax? Does anyone know? The tax is too high. The prices of cannabis have crashed and will only go lower. They are trying to squeeze blood from a rock.

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The City Council put the tax measure on the ballot months ago and just voted to allow a few dealerships in some places. A dealer must apply. The tax measure establishes the maximum tax. The City Council could go lower and becone the marijuana marketplace of Northern California. The City will be free to use the revenue on anything it likes such as higher salaries all-around or just for some. But maybe then the feds will intervene. Risky business.

Taxing a beneficial medicinal herb with a perfect safey record for literally thousands of years? Disgraceful! Why not tax prescription drugs and insulin, while we're at it? This is a simple land grab by local cities, including my own, sadly, to exploit the users of the miraculous plant.

Legal cannabis is associated with LOWER opioid use, LOWER suicide rates, LOWER violence rates and even (depending on who's doing the measuring) LOWER rates of traffic accidents.

I urge all my fellow MV citizens: Fight back against the ignorance of the uninformed reactionary minority and vote NO on any additional taxation.

Don't you have anything besides attempted personal insults to offer this discussion? Seems like you're just lashing out rather than providing any convincing points to your argument.

@Dan Waylonis (a resident of Jackson Park):

"Just as an exercise, substitute the word beer or wine for cannabis in the above story. Doesn't it sound ridiculous? Why does cannabis merit such crazy regulation and restriction when it is just an intoxicant equivalent to either beer or wine?"

Actually, alcoholic beverages are specially taxed and regulated; consumers don't realize it because most of these regulations were set up decades ago. Oh, and taxing booze has been done for centuries.

Let's look at taxes briefly. Alcoholic beverages consumed in the USA are taxed by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (more commonly known as the TTB, formerly the ATF). Depending on type of beverage (beer, still wine, sparkling wine, hard liquor) and the alcohol by volume percentage, the beverage is taxed a different amount and those taxes are passed along to the consumer in the price.

Sales of alcohol are time restricted. At least here in California, there are no alcohol sales between 2am and 6am. In some states it is worse, with no alcohol sales on Sundays, plus there are states with dry counties or dry towns.

The labeling of alcohol beverages is pretty crazy, particularly for wines. If your wine states that it is from a certain controlled name area (Alexander Valley), a certain percentage of the grapes used to make that wine need to come from that region. Same with vintage, if it says 2016, a certain percentage of that wine must be from grapes harvested that year.

Note that other places on this planet have similar restrictions. Wine labels must meet certain requirements for sale in the EU, things like point size of fonts used to describe alcohol percentage.

Ever see bottles of Italian microbrewery beers in the USA? Nope, neither have I. The Italian government makes it prohibitively expensive for Italian brewers to export their goods to the USA.

It's conceivable that some imported alcohol has been triple or quadruple taxed: the foreign government's taxes, customs duties, TTB taxes, and local sales tax. In Europe, a wine drinker is shouldering the cost of their local government's alcohol taxes plus the VAT.

Stuff like that and those are just tips on the iceberg.

As far as I can tell, the marijuana proposals here aren't particularly bizarre or out of line with the alcoholic beverage industry which has been subjected to regulation for centuries.

Moving on now.

@Dan Waylonis (a resident of Jackson Park):

And sometimes the American consumer doesn't even see the sales tax when purchasing alcohol.

Let's say you go to AT&T Park and buy a beer, $11. Maybe that same beer is $8 in a bar two blocks from the ballpark.

That's the price with the sales tax included to make the transaction neater. That $8 beer is really about $7.34 with 66-cent sales tax added .

In a retail store, they will collect the sales tax separately.

Trust me, the government is going to get their cut(s) whether you see it as a line item on a guest check/receipt or not.