LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto urged colleagues to pass the SAFE Banking Act to allow cannabis businesses full access to the U.S. banking sector.
She urged her colleagues at a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing Friday. This act would help legal cannabis businesses in Nevada and across the country to have access to safe banking and financial services such as opening a bank account and accepting credit cards.
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"My office heard from one business owner in Las Vegas who said that the lack of access to banking creates logistical headaches and puts her and her employees at risk. Her business has to deposit large amounts cash at local banks, often at more than one bank in the same day because of cash deposit limits," Cortez Masto said. "This is burdensome and dangerous. Last year, after one of those deposit runs, this business owner’s car was broken into. Fearing that whoever had broken into her car now knew from her bank deposit slips that she carried large amounts of cash – her coworkers bought her a taser. She keeps it by her bed at night to feel safe.”
Cortez Masto said that the inaccessibility of banking for marijuana businesses is outrageous. She says that banks already accept the money that legitimate marijuana business pay contractors and security firms.
"It's just common sense that they should serve the actual businesses too," she said.
At the hearing, she outlined the long-term consequences of not passing the SAFE Banking Act by pushing the witness panel.
Mr. Ademola Oyefeso, International Vice President of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union , who represents cannabis workers in Nevada said that until the SAFE Banking Act is passed, workers will continue to live in constant fear of being robbed or worse.
According to Cortez Masto's office, Nevada has the second highest sales of cannabis behind Colorado.
"Cortez Masto highlighted the challenges faced by a local business in Las Vegas for whom the status quo is not working and what this would mean long-term for Nevada's cannabis businesses," officials in her office said.
