DENVER — A plan to change the way the marijuana industry handles money finally moved forward on Capitol Hill, after about a decade with no progress.
A landmark, first time vote from the Senate Banking Committee advanced the SAFER Banking Act to the Senate floor. It will have to pass the Senate, then the House of Representatives, before it gets to President Joe Biden’s desk. Marijuana dispensaries praised the bill.
“I want to run like a regular business. I want to be a restaurant or a smoke shop down the street or anybody else,” said Clif Gordon at Herban Underground.
Gordon said he runs his business like any other.
“We hire employees, we pay employees, we order product in, we sell product out the door, just like anybody else,” Gordon said.
Gordon said about every third customer asks whether Herban Underground takes a credit card. The answer to those customers is no, cash only. A plan finally moving through Congress could change that.
Former Colorado Democratic Rep. Ed Perlmutter has been pushing for the Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation Banking Act, or SAFER Banking Act, for a decade now.
“It was designed to allow banks to provide legitimate banking services to legitimate businesses in those states,” Perlmutter said. “Credit cards, deposit accounts, payroll accounts, those kinds of things, so we don't have this big giant pile of cash that then attracts crime.”
Mason Tvert with Colorado Leads said operating exclusively in cash puts a target on people's backs.
“Imagine if you had to receive your paycheck every month as a big pile of cash that you had to walk out the door of your place of employment with,” Tvert said.
Tvert said it’s a safety issue that affects all business, especially small ones.
“This is critical public safety legislation, this is a matter of ensuring that these businesses have access to banking and they are not operating exclusively in cash,” Tvert said. “The lack of banking and financial products has really had a disproportionate impact on the smaller businesses and social equity businesses, so in a state like Colorado where we are trying to promote these businesses, we need to make sure they can access these types of banking services.”
Proponents said Wednesday’s big decision in the Senate Banking Committee has been a long time coming.
“It was really like a hallelujah, it was about time,” Perlmutter said.
Republicans have raised concerns because of objections to cannabis use, and even some Democrats would rather see other pro-pot policies move forward.
“We passed it, as I said, seven times out of the House to get it bottled up in the Senate Banking Committee, which has had it for five years,” he said.
Perlmutter thought it would have passed sooner.
“I thought this was really kind of a no brainer,” he said.
Now, it is one step closer to becoming reality.
“It made me happy but I am still holding my breath,” Gordon said.
Exhaling that breath, if it eventually gets to Biden's desk.
“We are closer than we have ever been before, but everyone has got to work to get it across the finish line,” Perlmutter said.
“Then we can operate just like any other business in terms of how we do banking,” Gordon said.
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