California hoped to recoup millions in a bong auction. It made $2,075. [View all]

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https://www.sfgate.com/cannabis/article/california-auction-cannabis-operations-18689671.php




California hoped to recoup millions in a bong auction. It made $2,075.



All thanks to the state of California, stoners throughout Los Angeles had the unique opportunity to upgrade their rigs at a discount.

After 10 unnamed cannabis businesses collectively owed California more than $14 million in unpaid taxes, the state seized their fixtures and sold them at a public auction on Feb. 16, the state’s Department of Tax and Fee Administration said in a Feb. 8 news release. The CDTFA appears to have miserably failed to recoup its losses: After hocking glass bongs, snow cone machines and assorted office supplies in the California Highway Patrol’s parking lot in Los Angeles that day, the state made a meager $2,075, the North Bay Business Journal reported.

According to the CDTFA, nine out of 10 of these businesses operated illegally, and it’s not the first time the agency has pawned off seized property from clandestine cannabis operations in Southern California.

In March 2022, the same department auctioned off a commercial property in Whittier that was used for an illegal cannabis operation, another CDTFA news release showed. Though operators owed the state $850,000 in unpaid taxes in that sale, the department hoped to recoup around $200,000 from the sale. Earlier that month, another seized property in Compton sold for about that same amount. The agency has conducted more than 2,200 inspections statewide and seized nearly $90 million in products and cash thus far, according to the CDTFA’s website.