In May of this year, Santa Ana Mayor Vince Sarmiento asked city planning staff to look at cannabis ordinance language drafted by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union, according to internal city e-mails released under a public records act request. Sarmiento’s actions came less than a less than a month after accepting a maximum contribution of $2,200 from the UFCW for his supervisor campaign.
The mayor’s aide encouraged staff to work directly with the political director of UFCW Local 324 on the matter.
Cannabis dispensaries are legal in Santa Ana, and the UFCW represents workers in seven Santa Ana cannabis dispensaries. Cannabis is a major focus of UFCW growth, as the union is also targeting cannabis testing labs for its organizing efforts.
On May 31, Sarmiento’s contract council aide Manny Escamilla emailed cannabis ordinance language drafted by the UFCW to city Planning Director Minh Thai and Principal Planner Ali Pezeshkpour. Copied on the e-mail were Sarmiento, City Manager Kristine Ridge, and Kathryn Downs, the city’s finance director.
“Hello Director Thai and Ali,” wrote Escamilla. “Here are the proposals from UFCW that Mayor Sarmiento asked me to share. Derek Smith is their lead on this and can be reached at [email protected] – [Smith’s cel phone].”
Escamilla is an employee of the City of Oakland, for which he works remotely as a planner. Sarmiento hired him as a contract council aide in March of this year.
Escamilla is a progressive-Left Democrat who is very active in Santa Ana politics. He ran unsuccessfully for city council from Ward 4 in a November 2019 special election, losing to now Councilman Phil Bacerra.
Escamilla has since moved to District 6 and on June 2 of this year he officially declared his intention to run against incumbent Councilman David Penaloza.
The e-mail exchanged surfaced as part of anonymous public records act request submitted to the city on June 16. Although the UFCW-authored ordinance attached, as well as a memo about a “High Road Training Partnership,” were both attached to the original e-mail from Escamilla, the city did not provide those key documents in response to the PRA request.
Judging from the name of the ordinance document – “tax credit ordinance 5192022 UFCW.docx” – it would appear to be a proposal for a municipal tax credit for cannabis businesses.
UFCW Big On Cannabis And Sarmiento
UFCW Local 324 is very focused on organizing cannabis workers as a growth area, and is supportive of expending expanding the number of jurisdictions where cannabis business are allowed to legally operate. Local 324 has an entire division dedicated to cannabis. An app on the local website allows uses to locate unionized marijuana dispensaries.
The state Senate recently passed UFCW-sponsored legislation providing generous tax credits to licensed cannabis businesses.
Escamilla’s e-mail to city staff identified Derek Smith as the UFCW’s “lead” on the proposed cannabis ordinance. Smith is the political director for UFCW Local 324. He is also active in the cannabis industry, serving on the board of directors of the Cannabis Chamber of Commerce.
At a March 25, 2021 shop stewards training conference put on by UFCW Local 324’s Cannabis Division, Smith led a session entitled “Why Political Power Matters in the Cannabis Industry.”
Smith was previously the political director for UNITE-HERE Local 11, the militant hotel workers union whose co-president, Ada Briceno, is also the chair of the Democratic Party of Orange County.
OC Independent e-mail Smith several questions regarding the union’s efforts to have the city adopted its cannabis ordinance. Smith has not responded to these inquiries.
Although Santa Ana has nearly 60 legal cannabis businesses of various types, only seven are unionized according to the UFCW website – meaning the union has great incentive to unionize the non-union shops.
The union has also been a loyal financial supporter of Sarmiento, contributing the maximum allowable donations to his past council and mayoral campaigns.
UFCW is also supporting Sarmiento’s campaign for the Orange County Board of Supervisors. In fact, a a few weeks before Escamilla, acting on Sarmiento’s behalf, sent to the UFCW drafted cannabis ordinance to city staff, the union contributed the maximum $2,200 to his supervisor campaign.
The precise nature of the UFCW’s cannabis tax credit ordinance is unclear: the city did not include it in its response to the PRA request.
OC Independent has e-mailed Escamilla requesting a copy of the proposed ordinance drafted by the UFCW. We have also e-mailed both Sarmiento and Escamilla for more information on the ordinance, as well as comment on the propriety of asking city staff to consider ordinance language drafted by a campaign donor – something of which Sarmiento has publicly critical.
Sarmiento declined to comment. Escamilla has not yet responded.
