HBO late-night host Bill Maher and actor Woody Harrelson blasted the Democrat-controlled state of California, saying the state “deserves to be shit on” over its tax policies while discussing the struggles in owning a cannabis store in California.
“It’s not easy to make a business work in California,” Maher said at the beginning of Monday’s Club Random podcast episode, while explaining why he decided to record the April 20 show at, The Woods, a cannabis store he co-owns with Harrelson.
The True Detective actor concurred, adding, “California just messes with every business.”
“I mean, I don’t want to, like, start this off… well, why not? Like, just shitting on California,” Maher said, before saying the state “deserves to be shit on for a lot of this kind of stuff.”
“And people know and this is why people flee the state,” the comedian continued. “California sucks as far as… well, all businesses, but certainly this one [cannabis]. They still treat it like it’s poison, whether it’s legal or not.”
Harrelson agreed, replying, “Yeah, they treat it like you’re lucky that we allow you to do this, and so, we’re going to tax you 35 percent, which is way more — it’s more than double anything.”
“It’s ridiculous that they can just tax the fuck out of you and make it so hard,” the Natural Born Killers star added. “They also don’t allow you to write anything off. They don’t allow you to write anything off, and they tax you 35 percent.”
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While California has a 15 percent tax on the retail sale of cannabis, there are additional local levies that can result in the overall combined tax rate to exceed 30 percent.
Later in the episode, after Harrelson noted that their business “is slowly picking up,” the two men segued to lambasting California’s tax rate again.
“But I tell you what, there’s nothing we can do when the government is charging 35 percent,” the actor added. “Like, they can’t tax us 35 percent. It’s not right.”
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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