The cost of legal weed is already high in the Empire State, with distributors paying a 9% fee when selling to a retailer, and merchants collecting a combined 13% tax -- 9% to the state, plus 4% for local governments -- on the sale to customers.
Cristina Vargas is now facing a dramatically different life after the July 7 crash outside Los Cinco Puntos Mexican Deli in Boyle Heights, where she had been eating with her daughter.
Paramount has pushed for a settlement in the case, which is the last hurdle to the deal along with a parallel lawsuit by the Writer's Guild of America.