HomeMy WebLinkAboutIntro Only - MOM at the Pet HospitalCity of San Luis Obispo
Cannabis Business Operators Permit Application
Retailer Storefront (Adult-use and Medical)
2nd Location Option)
January 29, 2019
Table of Contents
01. Business Operations Plan 9
01-A. Business Plan 11
Who We Are 12
Organizational Chart 16
Megan’s Markets 17
Our Mission 18
Our Values 18
Proposed Location 19
Ownership 21
Experience 46
Operation Details 47
Training 50
Advertising and Messaging 51
Social Commitments 52
Environmental Commitments 52
01-B. Community Relations Plan 53
01-C. State Licenses 55
01-D. Tax Compliance 57
Seller’s Permit 59
2014-2018 Sales Tax Returns 60
2014-2018 Employer Payroll Tax Returns 98
2014-2018 IRS Corporate Tax Returns 114
2017 IRS Personal Tax Returns 262
2018 Financial Statements 268
01-E. Insurance 279
01-F. Budget 285
01-G. Financial Capacity 287
01-H. Products & Services 305
02. Community Benefit 309
03. Education Plan 315
04. Security Plan 327
05. Lighting Plan 341
06. Site and Floor Plans 345
07. Water Efficiency Plan 359
08. Odor Control Plan 361
09. Hazardous Materials Plan 365
10. Energy Efficiency Plan 379
11. Exhibits 383
Exhibit A: Standard Operating Procedures 384
Exhibit B: Health and Safety Plan 408
Exhibit C: Example Employee Evaluation Test 419
Exhibit D: Job Specific Performance Evaluation 423
Exhibit E: Public Messaging 432
Exhibit F: Retail Employee Handbook 438
Exhibit G: Further Evidence of Compliance 470
Exhibit H: Training Manual 524
Exhibit I: Labeling Requirements 544
Exhibit J: CA Chapter 12 Packaging and Labeling 548
Exhibit K: Caldwell Signed Settlement 551
Exhibit L: Filed Request for Dismissal 553
Exhibit M: Petition Signature and Comments 556
Exhibit N: Cannabis and Me FAQs for Customers and The Public 594
4 MOM SLO LLC
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MOM SLO LLC 5
01. Business Operations Plan
Improving the
health of our
community with
access to quality,
organic cannabis.
This section provides a complete overview of the Megan’s Organic
Market proposal for San Luis Obispo.
01.
BUSINESS
OPERATIONS
PLAN
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Trusted Local Cannabis Operators (5+ Years)
Revitalization of an Underutilized Property
A Team Who Values the Environment and Community
6 MOM SLO LLC
Business Operations Plan
delivering the best customer service in the industry, MOM quickly became one of the most respected
cannabis companies on the Central Coast.
MOM has also been cultivating cannabis in SLO County since 2010 using organic, sustainable agricultural
practices that align with its core value of responsible stewardship. Well before there were regulations
governing the cannabis industry, MOM committed to using only Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI)
certified pest control and disease management products and fertilizers. At a time when most retailers
bought from numerous growers who too often used hazardous fungicides, miticides, pesticides, and
petroleum derived fertilizers—almost 100% of the cannabis flowers sold through MOM’s delivery service
were cultivated by MOM, thereby ensuring customer safety and product quality.
Community involvement has been a central part of MOM’s company culture since its founding. From
adopting a two-mile stretch of Highway 1, to sponsoring community workshops and blood drives,
and even hosting a local radio show, MOM has a exemplary track record of responsible community
stewardship. Additionally, Megan and Eric’s commitment to community development has led them to
serve on multiple boards of directors of local non-profit organizations.
The knowledge and experience Megan and Eric accumulated through their entrepreneurial cannabis
projects provides MOM SLO cannabis storefront with a skilled management team that can guaranteed
success. Their extensive commercial cannabis cultivation and retail delivery experience is complemented
their retail storefront experience gained from Megan’s CBD Market--a shop in Morro Bay selling hemp-
derived products.
MOM wants to continue growing our local brand that can help form the foundation of SLO County’s
cannabis industry: MOM is pursuing licenses for 5-acres of outdoor cannabis cultivation in unincorporated
SLO County, a cannabis storefront and delivery service in Morro Bay, and a cannabis storefront in the
City of SLO.
For its SLO cannabis storefront project, MOM has assembled a completely local team, with truly local
funding, which can offer the City of San Luis Obispo a world-class cannabis retail establishment. A solid
track record of tax compliance, community involvement, and environmental stewardship, make MOM
and the City of San Luis Obispo, the perfect match. The details of our proposal are outlined in the
following application and we hope to work alongside the City as we embark on this new venture.
Executive Summary
Megan’s Organic Market (MOM) delivery
service was founded in 2013 by Megan
Souza and Eric Powers in response to the
lack of verifiably organic medicine available
to local medical cannabis patients. For
5 years, MOM delivery service worked
hard to improve the health of SLO County
residents by providing safe and reliable
access to quality organic medical cannabis.
With its iconically apron-clad staff
MOM SLO LLC 7
01-A. BusinessPlan
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Locally Owned & Funded
Ownership of Proposed Building
Well Capitalized
Well Paid Jobs
Committed to Medical Products
MOM is a truly
local team with
the experience and
means to realize a
top tier facility.
01. BUSINESS OPERATIONS PLAN
SUBSECTION:
01-A.
BUSINESS PLAN
8 MOM SLO LLC
Who We Are
MOM is a highly experienced, 100% local team, with 100% local funding.
Megan Souza is owner of Megan’s Organic Market
in Morro Bay, which opened in 2013 as a Prop.
215 medical marijuana supplier. Megan attended
Shell Beach Elementary, Judkins Middle School,
Arroyo Grande High School, Cuesta College, UC
Santa Cruz, and Cal Poly for grad school. She
holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy
from UC Santa Cruz.
Megan’s mother owned New Waves vintage
clothing and costume store in downtown Pismo
Beach, her grandmother owned Second Time
Around vintage store in downtown SLO and her
cousin founded (and recently sold) the popular
Sally Loo’s Wholesome Cafe in SLO.
Megan and partner Eric Powers worked double
shifts as servers at local restaurants to fund their
first medium-scale indoor grow in Cayucos starting
in 2010. With the harvest, they supplied a small
collective of local medical patients. Slowly, their
patient list grew and the size of their cultivation
along with it. In 2016, they moved to a farm in Los
Osos so they could expand and grow outdoors.
Their farm is in Clark Valley, with an agreeable
microclimate, rich native soil and a bountiful well.
As their collective grew and they supplied more
and more patients’ medical cannabis needs,
the need for local advocacy for cannabis users
became apparent.
So they hosted educational campaigns and events,
made a free medicine program for patients
in need, and used their large patient base as a
means to scale up the small community service
projects they did in their spare time. They serve
on the boards of several local non-profits. Megan
hosts an educational cannabis+hemp radio
show, they conduct monthly highway cleanups of
their adopted 2-mile stretch of Hwy 1, volunteer
as election poll workers and candidate forum
workers, organize and host blood drives, and
donate to KCBX public radio and other local non-
profits that help the community.
Megan’s community involvement runs long and
deep:
Member – Morro Bay Chamber of Commerce
Member – SLO Chamber of Commerce
Donor – Morro Bay Friends of the Library
Donor – Morro Bay Skateboard Museum
Director – Morro Bay Neighborhood Watch
Board
Graduate – SLO County Citizens Planning
Academy
Current Participant – SLO Leadership Class
of 2019
Active Member – League of Women Voters of
SLO County
Active Member – National Association of
Women Business Owners
Megan Souza
MOM SLO LLC 9
Eric has been a resident of San Luis Obispo County since 1996. He has
five years of local commercial cannabis retail experience and eighty
years of local commercial cannabis cultivation experience. Since 2010,
Eric has cultivated thousands of pounds of cannabis in SLO County,
which was distributed to more than 3,000 registered local patients
through the delivery service he co-founded with Megan Souza, Megan’s
Organic Market.
Along with Megan, Eric also co-owns Red Truck Management LLC, which
possesses a Temporary Cannabis Cultivation License from the California
Department of Food and Agriculture for local outdoor cultivation in Los
Osos. Red Truck Management LLC has also applied for a license for a
3-acre outdoor cultivation site in Shandon, CA.
Eric also serves as treasurer of the Board of Directors for the Morro
Bay Neighborhood Watch Association, and is a passionate advocate for
sustainable agriculture.
Melissa is the fifth generation of her family to be born and raised on the
Central Coast. Her family has been in the real estate and small business
ownership industry since migrating to the area in a covered wagon
during the Gold Rush.
Following in her family’s entrepreneurial spirit, Melissa attended
cosmetology school immediately after graduating from Atascadero
High School. She paired her newly earned cosmetology degree with her
strong work ethic and business savvy, and went on to have a thriving
hairstylist practice for more than 22 years, owning and operating her
own salon for six of those years.
Now living in SLO and raising her daughter with husband Levi, Melissa is
looking forward to taking her entrepreneurial drive and business savvy
and applying it to the emerging cannabis industry in her hometown.
She wants people to understand the opportunities and possibilities that
are associated with this industry, and is ready to see it lose its negative
stigma to become more widely accepted.
Melissa will work in the Operational Division of the dispensary, applying
her experience and skillset to the storefront layout and design, and to
creating a welcoming and positive customer experience.
Eric Powers
Melissa Seligman
10 MOM SLO LLC
Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC), offering lactation support and education to new parents, and
teaching educational classes at the Santa Lucia Birth Center.
Lindsey also volunteers with the Central Coast Breastfeeding Coalition. For the past 8 years, through her
work with this organization, she has helped educate other care providers on patient care and best practices,
offered community outreach and education, organized breastmilk donation drives, been an advocate for
and recognized breastfeeding-friendly workplaces, and hosted a monthly post-partum support group for
new moms.
Lindsey will hold educational workshops for the San Luis Obispo dispensary, applying the knowledge and
experience she has gained through her lactation consultant advocacy work to the cannabis industry. She
has seen first-hand how cannabis can be used to treat a variety of malaise; throughout he mother’s cancer
treatment, Lindsey educated herself on how cannabis can supplement traditional pharmaceuticals to treat
insomnia and anxiety. Lindsey’s brother, paralyzed from the waist down as the result of a motorcycle
accident, uses cannabis to minimize his paralysis-induced muscle spasms.
She believes many of the stigmas associated with the cannabis industry can be dispelled through outreach
and education, and looks forward to the opportunity to further serve the community through this new
industry.
Amanda has been a resident of San Luis Obispo County since 2006. She
has two years of local retail cannabis experience.
As a single mother raising three children in SLO County, making ends
meet has often meant juggling three jobs at a time. Equity interest in
MOMSLO INC is a life-changing opportunity for Amanda and her family.
While employed by Megan’s Organic Market, Amanda developed
a passion for helping people manage pain, detox from addictive
prescription medications and reclaim their lives from anxiety and
depression.
Amanda also owns her own local business, Amanda Valena Photography.
Amanda Valena
Lindsey Law
Lindsey comes from a long line of San Luis Obispo area locals. Her
mother’s family immigrated here and received the first Spanish land
grant in all of California. And most of her family is still local, including
her parents, grandmother, aunts and uncles, cousins, and siblings. So
when it was time for Lindsey to raise her own family, she knew San Luis
Obispo was the place she wanted to settle down.
Now a mother of 4, Lindsey has planted her own family’s roots here in
SLO. She founded and operates her own business as an International
MOM SLO LLC 11
Levi Seligman is one of the principal property
owners behind this application. Levi arrived in
SLO in 1998 to attend Cal Poly, where he earned a
degree in Construction Management. He’s married
to Melissa Seligman and they have a 3-month old
daughter, Blaire Nissa Seligman. He bought his
first property in 1999, and his passion has always
been to work with the land and have the land work
for him. After working for himself for many years,
Levi decided to help people obtain their own land
and joined forces with Acquire Mortgage and
Real Estate Inc., located in SLO. Acquire has the
unique ability to streamline property purchases
by simultaneously handling the financing and
real estate transaction. This ability to complete
everything all under one roof is the main reason
Levi became a partner in Acquire Mortgage. Levi
also owns many SLO County properties including:
Keith Sweeney is one of the principal property
owners behind this application. An immigrant from
Ireland, Keith has been working on commercial
real estate investments and business projects in
the City of SLO for the past decade. Keith attended
technical college in Dublin, Ireland, before moving
to San Francisco and starting in the commercial
property business as a plumbing contractor.
He owned and operated Sweeney Plumbing for
19 years. Keith then relocated to SLO, where
he married and started his family. He and wife,
Lindsey Law, have 4 young children. Keith has
a strong sense of loyalty and takes pride in his
community and the relationships that he builds.
His passion is in creating successful partnerships
and introductions that will ultimately benefit his
family, friends, partners, and the community as
a whole.
Levi Seligman Keith Sweeney
14 MOM SLO LLC
Megan’s Markets is on a mission to redefine
society’s relationship with cannabis and hemp
through responsible stewardship. We’re con-
tinually seeking market opportunities to im-
prove the health of others and our community
through education, awareness, and access to
sustainable, high-quality cannabis and hemp
products.
Our Mission
Tagline: Making Cannabis Wholesome
Our Values
Making the world a better
place starts with the
community we live in. MOM
is dedicated to charitable
causes and doing good.
Community
MOM is committed to a
high level of corporate
responsibility, setting a
standard for this new and
emerging industry.
Stewardship
Business and the community
benefit from a more
educated world. MOM
strives to spread knowledge
and understanding.
Education
Based on our values, MOM makes decisions holistically, considering the impacts to the
community and the environment in addition to profit.
MOM SLO LLC 15
Proposed Location
Overview
MOM proposes a medical & adult-use cannabis retail storefront at 300 Higuera St, San Luis
Obispo, CA 93401. The C-R zoned site is located in the SLO City Cannabis Zone: Mid-Higuera
Overlay Area and is therefore land use compliant. The underutilized site is the former home
of the “O’Connor Pet Hospital” and is currently vacant. Levi Seligman, a principal of MOM
SLO LLC has obtained ownership of the property, giving MOM majority control. A complete
overhaul of the property is proposed, including but not limited to:
Complete facade rehabilitation and major interior renovations
Improved parking lot with ample parking
A Net Zero Energy project through solar and energy efficient fixtures
Two electric vehicle car chargers and a bike rack
Dark sky” compliant exterior lighting
Rain water recapture system
Potential for future affordable housing development
Please see Section 6: Site and Floor Plans for more detailed information and a complete set
of building renderings.
Before After
MOM ‘s vision for the property is a project that will significantly improve this major coordinator
of the city. It is an upscale, world-class cannabis retail facility that the city can be proud of.
With commitments to Net Zero Energy, electric vehicle chargers, a bike rack, LED lighting (see
Section 5: Lighting Plan for more information), drought tolerant landscaping, and rainwater
recapture, this project is also in alignment with San Luis Obispo’s climate action goals.
The facility plans coupled with MOM’s extensive experience and local roots provide for an
unmatched customer experience that is emblematic of SLO’s high standards.