Speaker
Hakeem Brown is a Vallejo City Councilmember and Entrepreneur who provides medicine to patients in Solano and Napa counties and beyond. Hakeem has served as a Vallejo Councilmember since 2018 and established L.E.S. as a community cornerstone that placed its most important asset – its citizens – above all else. With the community consistently remaining his main focal point, Hakeem has a similar strategy for Akoma, which will address societal inequities through employment opportunities, student scholarships, and tax revenue for the City of Vallejo.
Hakeem has operated a legal, licensed dispensary in Vallejo since 2009 and recently completed a rigorous compliance process with flying colors. Hakeem was the first Black dispensary owner in Northern California and has since expanded his business to include the first approved legal cannabis cultivation site in Vallejo. He is the first dispensary owner/ grower to be elected to an elected position in a city with over 100k in population. The only other person to be elected was Mayor Robert Jacob of Sebastopol, a small city in Sonoma, California. Hakeem has a long history of serving his community. He was a former delegate for the California Democratic Party & Legislative Chair for the California Democratic Party African American Caucus. Hakeem Brown is the first Vice President of the Vallejo Chapter of the NAACP and will continue to serve in that capacity. Hakeem has more than three decades of experience in marijuana cultivation, including 15 years in commercial growing. He founded Life Enhancement Services in 2009 and successfully navigated California’s complicated cannabis industry as its legal status transitioned over the past 25 years. In 2011, he co-founded and led a collective of medical marijuana dispensary owners that was responsible for the game-changing referendum that allowed for regulation of their industry in Vallejo. Hakeem was instrumental in the referendum that was passed in 2011 to impose a business license tax rate of 10 percent on the sale of medical cannabis in Vallejo. Brown and Life Enhancement Services helped fight to legalize cannabis in his city, even after it was legalized in California. “Our business model has always been community-based, all about how we can give back to the community,” he says. “As an African-American advocate, it was hard to get my foot in the door, and now I want to give back to those who need it.” For more information on Hakeem Brown visit https://hakeembrown.com/ |