 Okay, my name is James Pepper. I'm the chair of the Vermont Cannabis Control Board. Today is September 24, 2021. It is 11 a.m. and I'm calling this meeting to order. So this is the third of our weekly wrap-off meetings where the Cannabis Board reviews the work of the advisory committee and the subcommittees, has an open discussion about their progress and the direction that we'd like them to go and we can kind of just think about any other issues that we would like them to address. The subcommittees have continued to meet at their breakneck pace. They made a lot of progress this week, including they voted on some very specific recommendations from the subcommittees. We're trying to schedule our first full advisory committee meeting. I think I'll talk about that a little bit later. And that will give the advisory committee an option to kind of get input and weigh in on the subcommittee process and the work that they've done. And that means I think for our benefit, we will have some things that we can actually vote on and recommend ourselves as a Cannabis Board for next Friday's meeting. So I don't want to bury the lead here. I think anyone who's been paying attention knows that we're likely not to hit our October 1st reporting requirement. You know, given the pace of decision making and the amount of consideration that goes into developing a fee structure and the need to kind of have a little bit of process equity and receive appropriate feedback from our advisory committee and the public, I'd say that we're about two weeks behind schedule. I think we all recognize when we started this process that the subcommittee structure or advisory committee structure was on an aggressive timeline. And that given just the significance of this report to all the people that are watching and want to participate in this market, and given the fact that we want to be clear about grounding our fee structure and our market structure in equity and accessibility to small cultivators, that I think that there's just a few more decision points that we want fully vetted. And we don't want to rush. I don't think actually that this impacts our timelines. I think that, you know, again, this report is a recommendation to the legislature and the legislature needs to act upon it before we can adopt it or before we can go work on it. So I think we have an October 15th report doing social equity criteria. I think we could probably put these two together and submit them on the 15th. Yeah, so I don't see much impact on our future deadlines or our future reports based on this delay. I very much appreciate all of the members of our advisory committee who volunteered at this point countless hours of their time to this endeavor. I certainly appreciate all the members of the public who traveled from all around the state to attend the subcommittee meetings and have their voices be heard. And I appreciate all the people that have submitted comment both at these meetings and through our website. On this last point, we are going to be holding monthly, after-hours, cannabis board meetings dedicated exclusively to public comment. These will be one-hour meetings from 6 to 7 p.m. The physical location will be our offices at 89 Main Street in Montpelier. But these will also be live-streamed and members of the public can attend and comment through Microsoft Teams through the link that will be available on our website. The board members are intending to stay for the full hour. So, you know, if you get off work and you can't join right at 6 o'clock, we'll be there until 7. However, if there is no public comment, then the board members can, I feel, fine letting you turn your videos off. But there will be someone present here at our office. We'll post the dates to our websites for this. But the first one is this coming Tuesday, September 28th from 6 to 7 p.m. The next one will be October 26th, November 30th, and then December 28th. So, we're trying to do the kind of like the last Tuesday of each month. That's the schedule for the rest of the year and we'll update that for the next year. So, the advisory committee will be meeting in full next week, next Wednesday, from 2 to 3 p.m. And they're going to review and provide input on the subcommittee's work. The in-person location will be at 89 Main Street, 3rd floor, at the Department of Financial Regulation Conference Room. But for those meetings, of course, members of the public may attend virtually through a Teams link that we'll have on our website and it'll be an agenda posted to our website as well. And of course, it'll be a public comment period. I guess the last thing I have is everyone had an opportunity to review the minutes from our prior cannabis board meeting last Friday. Yes. Great. I take a motion to approve those minutes. So moved. Seconded. All right. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. That's the last of the kind of administrative details. Kyle, do you want to do an update on sustainability and compliance enforcement? Sure. So one thing that was explicitly mentioned in 164 was ensuring that the cannabis control board looked to our state agency partners to leverage partnerships where it is appropriate. And I would say that that was a big theme for both the sustainability committee and the compliance and enforcement committee this week. I'll start with sustainability. We met on Wednesday for 90 minutes instead of Monday and Thursday for 60 minutes due to scheduling conflicts. And the substance that we were reviewing, it was just it made more sense to have one longer meeting and we reviewed PSD's energy recommendations. I thought overall the conversation very technical, very in the weeds. But at the end of the day, I think the consultant, Jacob Blitzer and also members of the subcommittee were overall very impressed with PSD's recommendations. Even considering that PSD is is wading into waters that they typically haven't had authority over, namely greenhouses. Those are typically exempt from the commercial building energy standards and handled through the agency of agriculture. We're working on a little bit of making sure they have the statutory authority to help us if enforcement is ever necessary from those outdoor green house is and those perspectives where we have we did not take a vote specifically on those recommendations. I think the subcommittee is in agreement. Almost with all of those recommendations, but there's some thoughts that are that are still being reviewed and considered by our consultant to make sure that it's appropriate for this specific market. He's got the cannabis energy expertise, just making sure that through his knowledge and outreach and materials that are available to him, the recommendations by PSD are something that will slide in and work for everybody who's trying to participate in this market. So that's really where the entire focus came from the sustainability committee this week. As for compliance and enforcement, we did make a lot of progress. This week. Overall, we talked a lot about local control. I think the subcommittee helps give Julie you some some direction, some guidance on the municipal roundtable that I think is scheduled to happen next week. We also talked about outdoor cultivation enforcement and indoor cultivation enforcement and the subcommittee voted unanimously to ask the board to look towards a memorandum of understanding with the Agency of Agriculture Food and Markets to assist us on inspection compliance and enforcement when it comes to outdoor cultivation and indoor cultivation. So that'll be presented to the full sub or the full advisory committee and potentially voted on by the board next week. The other milestone that we hit in that committee this week was another charge and I just want to make sure I have it up on sea to sail tracking. We talked a lot about sea to sail tracking, what that means, the different types of technology that we could implement from a state level that will ensure that there's no diversion, that we have appropriate data that we need at our level, also for folks that will be license holders. And we the subcommittee voted unanimously on a couple sentences that kind of give us as a board some guidance to go out and seek a vendor to work with. And I can just read that for the better of the folks on the call and for you to the board shall seek a vendor for open API tracking software that is maintained by the cannabis control board, but is long and accessible by cultivators to self report inventory software should have the capacity to track data based on both lot size and bank count. So very 30,000 foot, not in the weeds there, but give us some starting point to go out and look to a relationship with a vendor. What does API stand for? Not a tech guy, so. I can look it up. Sorry. Give you give me one second. The way I understand it is it's a communication tool between two different programs. I think application programming interface should have just, you know, not gotten into my head about it. But yeah, so it would allow for us to have our platform, but a license holder to potentially go out and seek whichever software they want to use, you know, considering what they want out of that software price point, so on and so forth. But as long as it interfaces with our software, they'd have that ability to do so versus us requiring a license holder to go out and seek a specific type of software. Essentially, that's the way I understand it. But I've learned a lot about software over the last week or so. So we heard from the Department of Liquor and Lottery on retail enforcement yesterday. I thought that was a really good conversation. We're going to continue that conversation on Monday. The Agency of Agriculture does does have some experience in retail enforcement. I want to hear how they typically go about things. And we're going to hear about some some states that really do all of that retail enforcement in house and what that would take from a resource perspective from some of our consultants. So that's kind of, unless I'm missing something, that's that's where both of them stand. But again, the Sustainability Committee could we'll be talking about waste primarily on Monday. But I asked Jacob to reserve some time to continue a conversation on those energy recommendations. And there's the potential for about a subcommittee on those next week. Was there a discussion in compliance and enforcement about the resources that Agency of Ag would need in order to do that? You know, I know they have with five people. Yeah, you know, we've we've there hasn't been any definitive answer to what that would need. Again, I think everybody's kind of waiting and seeing the recommendations from the Market Structure Committee on license types, even understanding how many licenses we're going to expect as a board to be out there from both the cultivation and retail. Perspective, I think it's hard for us to estimate that at this point in time, but even getting that ballpark on what to expect the size of specific operations, how many indoor versus outdoor will really help the Agency of Agriculture and the Department of Liquor and Lottery. I've asked the same question to and they of course want to see how many retail establishments we would expect to be with us over the course of the next year or two. They estimate that there's over 7000 license holders from a tobacco and alcohol perspective across the state. They have 11 inspectors and they each carry about 60 to 70 license. They inspect 60 to 70 per inspector each year. I don't think we're going to have 7000 retail establishments, but it'll certainly add to their load. Again, I think once we that sort of comes into vision from a market size and structure perspective, we can really start ironing out more resources that will be necessary both in manpower and financial relationships with whichever direction we go. And that 7000, that's liquor stores and also places that sell beer and wine over just liquor stores, general stores, corner stores, breweries, distilleries, gas stations. And they said that number fluctuates, but that was a approximation. And then have they considered maybe something that should be on at least on their radar, some of the alternative retail license types that have been discussed in the market structure, the delivery, the, you know, potential like limited space one store. Sure. So I've signaled to that committee that the market structure committee might put forth a license type with a fee recognizing that there's a lot more questions that would need to be answered before the board moves on any specific license type when it comes to the general store concept or farm gate sales or delivery, so on and so forth. I think we're going to move out of the enforcement arena next week into the security arena. And what does what does that mean security is such a broad term when we relate to this industry, whether it's fencing at an outdoor cultivation site, what types of cameras security would be needed at a retail establishment or indoor growth site, so on and so forth. So I've asked brand and our consultants to help us start attacking that in small chunks that word security. And hopefully, once we have more discussions, some of those thoughts and how practical some of those license types will be at least at the initial phase will start with coming to view. So delivery would be entirely new, right? We don't have any alcohol delivery. So a delivery inspection would be an entirely new whereas, you know, like having, you know, there are stores now that sell beer and wine or have, you know, coli coli food stores in them, that might be not a different process. The delivery would be a complete process. Sure. It's just something to think Yeah. And I asked, you know, liquor and lottery. They go in and do sting operations and inspect stores where folks under the age of 21 can be in regardless of what they're trying to purchase. They could go in by candy, there might be liquor behind the counter or beer in the cooler. And I would imagine it except for that general store concepts, you know, that same type of underage interaction at a retail establishment for out of dispensary is going to be a lot different. So how would their program look if if we were going to go in that direction and what would change from that tobacco and alcohol perspective? Yeah, I'd like to get their perspective to also on the special event license types. And how do they how they handle those, you know, like the Ramon brothers fast, what they're involved in for that kind of enforcement. That's a, that's a great idea. I'll make sure that I ask that question on Monday. All right. Anyone else you need from us? I think we're good. I think we're making progress. And we're trying to, especially with the Implant compliance and enforcement committee, it's a lot on their plate and trying to figure out ways to gather small wins and take things and in the ability to actually get something done in an hour. It's challenging, but we're figuring out ways to get the most use out of their time and their feedback. All right, Julie, do you want to just because of the, I mean, I sat in on social activity, you want to just do these one at a time me to start with public health and have a discussion and then socially agree to have a discussion? So public health continued a lot of their discussion. They did not make any decisions or fully agree on things just yet. They are hoping to do that next week. So they continue to review symbols. They discussed more about the warnings talking about the addition of poison control to some of the warnings and not safe for children. And, you know, whether or not it should say do not use if pregnant or breastfeeding. So that was a lot of their conversation around that. They also began to talk a little bit about how much of an ad space a warning should take up. And they looked at a package that came from a legal dispensary in another state that had no warnings. And then the moderator demonstrated what it would look like with warnings to kind of demonstrate the difference in the importance of these warnings. And they've also talked about the possibility of having a QR code on packaging that could be scanned and provide additional either product information or safety information. That is kind of the the gist of their conversation for the week. Is there any benefit? Is there any discussion around having a regional standard, you know, as in like having a new England regional standard for some of these labeling, you know, requirements? And I just wonder if you know, you have people that are traveling from Massachusetts or Maine to Vermont that they will understand kind of inherently what what our symbols mean? Yeah. So they did start by looking at the mass and mean labeling because both mass and man use the same label. The one concern there was that the leaf is a little bit cartoonish looks a little bit like a maple leaf. So there was a concern that it could be confused in some way with actually marketing. And then they also looked at some folks that are doing international standardization of symbols. And so I think that's what they're trying to decide between is the sort of international standard of symbols and regional, you know, standard of symbols. And that's what they're looking at. I think where they're going now is sort of a combination of the two. I it's curious to me because, you know, this is a symbol that has to be on every product. And it could be actually because of Vermont's like dedication to quality. And, you know, it actually could be a stamp of kind of like a stamp of something a quality product as well. But I also wonder if there is federal legalization, whether or not, you know, we want, we're gonna have to change the symbol anyway. So I kind of want to anticipate both of those issues. And I think to this committee is very concerned about whether or not a label says enough. And one of the concerns I have is the more we add to this, the more difficult it is for someone to put on their product. So the more colors you have the, the more detailed the design, the more difficult it is for people to get that onto their product. And the more expensive it is. Yeah, financial burden for folks to comply, recognizing that this is in the name of consumer safety. So it's a careful balance out of the other interesting thing that came up with the packaging that they looked at is that the package that they looked at had no serving size on it. So it was a package that had like 10 gummies in it, but it didn't say it said how many milligrams of THC there were but not how much is a serving size. So there was some concern around and some direction around making sure that our packaging has serving sizes on it. Great. Sounds good. Yeah. Are they looking like they're going to move towards any sort of vote or conclusion by next week? I hope so. I think that there's so much to look at and there's so much consideration about the public health that there's a little bit of paralysis in the analysis. And but I think we're going to try and move towards a decision. Okay. I don't know how much this would impact our October one reports. It's not like, you know, there's various time on this. So you need to do the work by, you know, eventually we'll have to file those. Their charge is to be done by October 20. So they are working with that. That sort of deadline in mind. Gotcha. Great. Anything for Julie? I think that's it. Social equity did make some agreements on defining a social equity candidate, which they defined as lives in an opportunity zone, which is a criteria that's defined by the US Census, or is black indigenous or a person of color, or convicted of cannabis related offense, or has a family member who's been convicted of a cannabis related offense. And that could include an arrest, a misdemeanor or felony. There's there's a list of those offenses. They also agree to a definition of impacted family member. As a parent, legal guardian, sibling, spouse, child, minor in their guardianship or grandparent or child. In the previous meetings, this subcommittee talked about a one year in Vermont residency requirement. And they did away with that in this particular meeting. So those are the definitions that they're working with now. Even though there's no sort of requirement, you know, there's no benchmark to meet. When somebody applies, this committee agreed, they would have to demonstrate residency in Vermont at the time that they apply as a social equity applicant. And they came up with a pretty extensive list of documentation that seems to me at least on the surface of it fairly inclusive. It includes, you know, everything from a driver's license to tax returns, or even affidavit from a lease holding roommate. So it should be fairly easy for someone to be able to obtain at least most of and they only have to get one of those documents, they should be able to attain one of those documents. And then they ended with talking about what the waiver and free reductions will look like. And where they seem to be leaning right now is a complete waiver in the first year. 25% of the cost in year 250 in year three and 75 in the year four and then full price after that. And where they ended their discussion was really about whether or not you know, someone in year two or three was still struggling because we know that those are the initial years of a business in the highest cost. If they could apply for an additional waiver for those years to be able to get their business up and running with the demonstration of how they're working through that. What about the flip side of that? Any consideration? Let's say a social equity comes in and it's doing extremely well financially, moving them off the social equity aspect of things to a full license fee perspective ahead of that five year term or there was discussion about that. And it's interesting because there's one part of me that feels like, well, that is not sort of the point of having these. And then there's another part that says, well, then couldn't we then free up whatever would be the license fee that someone would pay and use that license money to help another social. So I feel like there's more discussion to be had on that. Yeah. So you said that there was a list of the quote unquote cannabis related offenses. It's not a definitive list. So they talked about arrest, conviction, misdemeanor or felony, but there isn't like an extensive like specifically this possession that type of. Okay. So is it mostly like possession charges? No, they weren't that specific about it. I'm wondering like, you know, cannabis related offense could be DUI. And I wonder if that actually is in line with what we're thinking about for social equity. That's right. I feel like they're when they're discussing it, the examples that are used are more about possession than they are about DUI or sale even. So I think that's a question I could bring up to the subcommittee. Yeah. Yeah. And then on on that, I'm curious really, this has been thinking the back of my head, which is someone could qualify as a social equity applicant because of a criminal conviction, but then they might also not qualify for a license because of how we are going to be thinking about criminal history records. Like they had a cannabis conviction, but they also had an aggravated domestic assault in within, you know, certainly. So it could be that they get through as a social equity applicant, but they're ultimately denied a license. Is that being discussed at all? I mean, I just don't want that to come as a shock to anyone just because you have a cannabis conviction. Yeah, no, that hasn't been discussed at all. And this commission probably at least be thinking about that. I think we'll probably think separately about what those background checks and the impacts of those are probably other committees, but this commission have that in mind for sure. They also have not talked about what impact it really means. So some could have a cannabis conviction in their past and have absolutely, I mean, it could might not impact their present day life at all. And we haven't dealt into that. Can you talk, was there any like kind of overlay of Vermont with Opportunity Zones, like just a map of Vermont and where these are? Like I think, you know, when we talked, I think about kind of disproportionately impacted communities because of the, you know, sample sizes in Vermont, it was like entire counties were impacted communities. You know, I'm wondering if that would be also true of the Opportunity Zones? So they did show what the Opportunity Zones are and it looks, to me, at least on the census map, that those are smaller, more narrowly impacted spaces. And if I remember correctly, it's not, it has something to do with employment in that area and whether it's changed or dropped. And that, you know, that type of thing. Yeah, okay. And then sorry to take up so much time here, but can you just run through some of the kind of discussion that happened around the residency requirement? And because I was reading the minutes and it seemed like it was a year or it was two years and then it was zero. I just don't, I wasn't kind of really in on all of those conversations. So there's, there's been discussion in other states about residency requirements and at least the report back to us is that in each of those states that has been struck down in some way when it was challenged by anyone. So there was discussion around that and I think there's a concern of opening the door to Vermonters who live here and have been here and would like to participate in this market and potentially have been impacted by Vermont's criminal and, you know, justice system. And, but then not also discriminating against people who might want to move here and be part of the system as well. So that was the gist of the discussion and I think where the subcommittee began to talk about was almost like waiting some of those things. Like as part of the application process, the Vermont piece of their story could be considered as part of it, although it's not a requirement to apply. So that's sort of the way that they're handling it right now. Objective criteria is obviously easier to score when it's subjective than I think opens the door for us to have some discretion which, you know, makes things difficult but I totally agree with the concept. It's kind of like the qualitative piece. That's right. And we haven't talked about, and I think that the legislation probably assumes that it would be the board that approves those applications and whether or not there should be, we should lean on our subcommittees or other groups to help us approve those. Yeah, I think that's a, that last point is a good question about who is actually deciding who's the social apricot and whether we need a broader stakeholder. Right. Yeah, great. Well, there's a lot to tackle there. What do you need from us? I don't think so. All right, and that, you know, it's something that we mentioned in our admin meeting. I think it's a good idea to kind of have our consultants, maybe subcommittee member attend the social apricot case and talk to them about the progress that they've made on the social apricot case meeting. Okay, market structure. I'll start there and then move to the medical. So on Monday, the conversation started with local fees. There is a discussion around what these local fees are actually intended to support. Of course, you know, we as a board need to submit a recommendation around reasonable fees. We have to describe what they're going to be used for and why they are reasonable. So it was, is this the administrative cost of actually processing paperwork? Is there something more to it than that? Is there something else? And the subcommittee decided that for now, as a placeholder, they would like to cap this fee at $100 and they would leave that as their recommendation up until they heard from municipalities or from the league or someone else about why there's an additional burden that should, they would justify an increase to that. So for now, I think that the $100, you know, they did hear from Jen Flanigan from VS Strategies who's a, you know, former cannabis control commissioner from Massachusetts and, you know, she really thought that the local fee should be low and unless there's a justification can be adjusted in later years if we're finding that there actually is kind of increased repaving or something like that that is needed. I was just going to say I did ask Tim, our member with Expertise Municipal Issues, to think about if they want, if municipalities want to justify a higher fee to think about what that fee would be associated with other than administrative costs. So I asked him that in the Compliance and Enforcement Committee meeting yesterday to think about an anticipation of that roundtable. I didn't mean to interrupt you. No, no, no, please do. This is an open discussion. Speaking of which, can you just mention a little bit about the roundtable? So based on public comment that we got last time, we reopened the survey and sent it out. It also sent it to the regional planning groups so that they could sort of help us get some more response. And we have gotten more response. I think we're almost at 30% of the folks that we sent it out to responding right now, which was my goal. So it remains open until the 27th at noon, so Monday at noon. And then we're hoping to do the roundtable next week. And the questions I think that we'll probably ask are, you know, what do you see as the expense above permitting any other business in your town? And it would be helpful to know what municipalities are concerned about. Is it traffic? Is it lighting? Is it what is it that they're worried it's going to cost more potentially if they are worried it's going to cost more? You know, and what should we be the facing the fee on? It's a little hard to compare, you know, a fee for a cannabis establishment based on other fees if you don't really know like I don't know what the liquor control fees were based on or how long ago they were created. So it's important to know what it is the costs are now for these groups. And then also in terms of compliance and enforcement, what they need to know from us. And then clearing up some confusion, I think that's becoming clear through the survey about what does the legislation actually say for them. Great. Yeah. And so that's next week. Yes. Yeah. Great. Okay. So the subcommittee market structure then moved away from local fees. There is again a discussion about provisional licenses and how these should be structured. So these provisional licenses, of course, of these kind of exploratory licenses that they discussed in the prior meeting which would only have kind of a short form application. They would allow a kind of applicant to then go out and start thinking about a business plan, start putting together rental agreements, potentially putting together capital, etc. And the huge benefit to the board is that we can then gauge kind of entrepreneurial demand. How many license holders are serious about this? How many potential license holders? How many retailers are serious? You know, lab, product manufacturers, etc. So the subcommittee thought the only way that this provisional license could actually add value and be kind of a real barometer of interest is if the fee was not nominal, if it was an actual real fee, and that it was not refundable. However, it could be applied as a credit to their final license or to a future license. So that was kind of the parameters of that, that, you know, they said $500 for a small cultivator would probably be enough to kind of really separate the folks that are only semi-interested from the folks that actually want to get going in year one. So I don't think they set that in stone anywhere, but that was kind of their general kind of take on the not nominal question. The conversation on Thursday really turned towards the actual fee structure. You know, the VS strategies presented their basic first shot at a fee structure with actual kind of tiers of licenses and what they would cost. You know, that was my first look at it in the meeting. You know, there's a lot of assumptions that go into making this and really they're doing what we asked them to do, which is look at, you know, we have these, we have a need to have our budgets and our fees equalized, and but we also have these other considerations that we have, which are having, you know, reduced fees, reducing barriers to entry for small cultivators, having waivable or sliding scale fees for small equity or social equity applicants, and that perhaps, and to also kind of keep this local, keep this, you know, build upon our kind of craft culture in Vermont. And so having kind of these mega grows and just in order to kind of have a large fee come in is probably not in line with what we're trying to do. That being said, you know, they don't know what the entrepreneurial demand is going to be. They don't know how many people are going to get into this, how much of the kind of flowering canopy we need can be met by small and medium sized cultivators. And so they've laid it all out here with any number of kind of iterations that, you know, we're going to need to decide on. I think this market structure fee recommendation is on our website, or at least it can be very soon. And, you know, for the members of the public, you can see kind of what they're thinking based on tiers of outdoor and indoor cultivation. This is the sizes of those. They've got two different retail licenses, like tiers for those, which is just kind of a brick and mortar storefront traditional retail, what I think most people think about. But then also for a lesser fee, just a kind of nursery license or seeds and clones. They've priced out what a kind of limited space, limited location retail license could be. This is the kind of store within cannabis store within a larger store, general store potentially. And they have a fee here for like that kind of retail or the direct consumer. They've got two manufacturing license types. Tier one is ones that use CO2 extraction. Tier two is ones that don't. I think there's kind of a increased safety concerns for the kind of tier one versus the tier two. So that that's why they separated those two out. They've got the integrated license fee here, testing laboratory fees. There is a question about whether if you're a lab that's already certified and paying a fee for whether you need a second certification and pay a second fee just to do high THC cannabis. So I think that's again an open question there. And yeah, I mean, I think what's interesting about this is they have it set up here so that yes, like fees could support our budget or projected budget which we don't have fully realize yet. And then one, I think one where they don't have to meet those where there could be some there could be some supplement supplemental income from the excise tax. So that we could do kind of more reduced and lower fees for small cultivators and social equity applicants. And of course, there's so much that goes into this because they don't know like, are we going to have 100, 200 cultivators coming forward or are we going to have 50 or we're going to have 400, 1,000. So it's kind of, it's a little bit of assumptions built upon assumptions here, but they have it separated out into kind of best case scenario where there's a lot of participation, kind of more reasonable you know, participation and then kind of the worst case scenario where, you know, people just want to stay in the illicit market and don't want to participate. So it's broken up that way. The conversation in this subcommittee, there wasn't much back and forth this time because they were really just presenting it. And then the conversation is likely to happen on Monday. Yeah, I think that's kind of wraps up what happened there. Any questions on any of that? Do you think in terms of looking at the fees and kind of guesstimating entrepreneurial demand, would it be helpful to have like a model of what the total cost is if you're a retailer or a small cultivator and you're trying to start up? Is that an estimate that BS can look at for us? I can ask them that. You know, I can say that I've heard, you know, from various members of the public that are interested in this, that they kind of know those numbers already, that they've kind of put together their business plans and that they're kind of, you know, just waiting to see what the final like regulatory compliance is going to cause, what the kind of details of the rules are going to be. But it might be helpful to have that just like maybe Massachusetts, this is how much like the average retail and establishment costs, you know, to start up for a lab. The lab is somewhat easier to kind of like, those are fixed costs. Right. Yeah. I thought it was a good first crack at this knowing that there's a lot of guesswork that still needs to be done when it comes to entrepreneurial demand. That's right. And they're, they're abiding by direction that would give them, which is fantastic. I have a clarifying question. So the pre-application idea, I remember listening to the conversation and I remember being discussed in the context of small cultivators if we want them to be a large part of this, this market and not knowing exactly how many might come forward initially to have that pre-application to gauge that part of this. What you, is the subcommittee also considering pre-applications for every other license type that we might put forward to gauge the entire market? I just want to make sure I'm clear. I don't have an opinion either way necessarily. Yeah. I thought the conversation was have a provisional for every license type. Yeah. To really just see, you know. Gauge the market. Gauge the market and see, you know, make sure that there aren't going to be bottlenecks along the way. Right. And if there are, at least we'll know initially and we can make adjustments or we can try and make adjustments, you know, on the fly if there's not enough testing capacity in the state because of these provisional licenses. Yeah. I know everybody's fearful of labs and how many they're currently is certified through the Agency of Agriculture's program. How many prospective ones there might be and I think we need to really pound the pavement to make sure that we've got satisfactory labs to support this industry. Yeah. And one other piece kind of on that like estimating the demand, and the model also has some of these tiered cultivators that are the larger ones and they say that you could delay these, you know, you could delay them if these provisional licenses come back and you're well sure of the canopy needed to meet the demand then you could open up a Different license type. A larger license type. I think what Massachusetts does is you have to graduate into one. You know, like if you can start at 6,000 square feet and if you're successful and you're using your canopy and you know, you're growing quickly then you could graduate into a 10,000 or 25,000 square foot. You know, that's the kind of, that's the kind of, when you look at this and you see these large numbers it's kind of, they did go into the fact that these might not be available in year one depending on the demand. Yeah. I think that's a smart concept and hopefully we can allow some some flexibility if that license holder is able to prove that to be able to make sure that we're our supply and demand is equaling itself out if somebody's able to produce more. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, I think essentially for this October 1st report I mean, this is the foundation of it. We need to let the advisory committee kind of do its work and we need to do our work but I think this is a good starting point and again, I think that it would only benefit Vermonters and everyone if we provide the legislature with a few options on this not just totally, okay, here's the fee structure to equalize our expenses but, you know, here's another fee structure that could work also that kind of lives the values that are shown in 164 and 162. It sounds like a good way to go about it. Yeah. Okay. The medical only met once this week and the discussion, I think mostly revolved around the patient-to-care-giver ratio. I think this deserves a little bit of clarity because when people think caregivers it's actually kind of an umbrella turn on that encompasses a number of different kind of responsibilities and caregivers under the medical program can administer cannabis to their patients and they can go to a dispensary and purchase on behalf of their patient but they can also grow on behalf of their patient grow plants under the limits that are in the medical program and so there's this question about increasing the patient-to-care-giver ratio which is currently set at one-to-one for most for the vast majority of caregivers. I think if you're under 18 both of your parents could be a caregiver but for the most part it's one-to-one ratio and there's a lot of conversation about whether this ratio should increase and of course I think the two subcommittee members that attended really wanted to increase on the administering medicine side and the kind of traditional caregiver side and not on the increasing the designated grower leave it there and you know the justification for leaving the designated grower alone that ratio one-to-one essentially is at what point do regulations come in at what point do quality control standards come in if you had one-to-three or one-to-five and all of a sudden you know a designated grower is growing kind of a larger plot but at what point do we need to have mandatory testing at what point do we need to have all the compliance and enforcement that is traditional small cultivator that we're contemplating would have to go through I think it's important to note that almost the vast majority of caregivers have a very personal relationship with their patient it's usually a spouse or a family member and so when you're kind of that relationship becomes more attenuated you know is you know at what point did we step in essentially and demand some sort of regulatory compliance and so they didn't really come to a conclusion on that there is just a lot of back and forth about what caregiver means should we bifurcate this definition in rule so that there's a caregiver and then a designated grower and they mean different things and I don't think we came to any real the committee came to any real conclusions at that meeting it did not meet on Thursday I think the plan is to meet again on Monday and we also have to remember that the marijuana for symptom relief oversight committee which is a legislative committee that oversees the medical program and makes recommendations is also expiring next year however the legislature asked for them to kind of restructure their makeup and restructure their mission and give a recommendation to us and so I think that medical committees is also going to review that recommendation because that's due they want to get it to us by October 1st and then we want we have to report back I think on November 1st on that so I think part of that medical subcommittee will be looking at that recommendation looking at the new makeup of the marijuana for symptom relief oversight committee see how their enabling legislation may change and then kind of present that to us anything on the medical so our sort of goal is to preserve the continuity of the medical program leaving it as a one-to-one doesn't feels more like it would push people from the medical program into the adult use market than preserving the medical program and I say that because if you are a talented grower and you're now growing for your mother and then your father also gets sick then you're then you're one of your two you have to choose between your two parents which one you're going to grow for and which one will purchase from the adult use market so I agree that there is probably a point at which you know that crosses from you know care to small cultivator but I I think one-to-one just is not realistic or fair and I don't think it provides that continuity I tend to agree with Julie I think there's a point where the board would have to step in and do something when it comes to testing so on and so forth but I don't know if leaving it or going anything above one-to-one up to a I think that there's a point that we can we can raise that ratio a little bit without still giving me a degree of comfort and the integrity of the program without having to leave it at one-to-one I also think that if it's available that quality control is something that patients and growers would seek out if they can go get a product tested I think and it's affordable I think it would you know I think most people would yeah I think it's important just to note that this ratio is statutory so we actually we can make a recommendation around it but it would have to be approved through the kind of normal legislative process and I forget exactly which committee this issue goes to and I think it's the public health and all there but they've been reluctant to change this the human services yeah um oh notwithstanding still still feel right just it's important to note that absolutely and then on the continuity of services that's reminded me that the they've asked the subcommittee has asked for the dispensaries to provide them with a list of the products that they supply to their patients so that we as a board can ensure that at least those at a minimum stay on the shelves uh you know to make sure that during this transition that there's no um that these medicines are accessible so I think that's an important piece is there a discussion about allowing people with a medical card to purchase at any dispensary or at like an adult use yes that that's been discussed I think um I think both of the subcommittee members agree with that I can't quite remember where they landed on that but purchase tax free I'm sure there's some technical issues you have to work out there but um yeah I think they that was something that they all supported as far as reciprocity goes so they've tackled that yet I know that we've got you know snow birds right and stuff like that making sure so the reciprocity you know seemed kind of like a no-brainer as well and I know we're cutting in a public comment right now yeah but I can stay a little bit wait but it did it did just spark a conversation that had kind of escaped to me is that the dispensaries actually have pretty strict plant counts currently it's all tied to the number of patients that they have and so if you just say you know anyone with a medical card who happens to be vacationing here can go over to a dispensary and purchase they may be taking you know the products that are specifically set aside for a specific patient so you'd have to kind of tinker with canopy size and plant counts okay um good enough all right um there's nothing else we'll turn to public comment and so we have one person in the room we'll start here but if you have a public comment and you join through the link please raise your virtual hand and we'll call on you it's a lot oh okay got your answers my name's uh Mike Shane from a minority owner of a recently incorporated clover hill cannabis with my wife Michelle who's obviously a woman and also indigenous so I think that in some ways we fit the bill of what what Vermont's looking for we I came today to talk about the possible provisional license and what that could do for people in our financial position we're both work full-time and we have kids and directors so unfortunately Michelle couldn't make it even though she's going to be the owner operator so I just came to kind of present that view these small cultivator we we leased a property that we could have a thousand foot campion perhaps expand looking at the law and trying to project in the future big costs these kinds of businesses can't be stood up overnight that the cannabis especially the indoor grows have a lot of unique requirements and therefore they can't be stood up overnight they uh they require expensive lights electrical work intense amounts of cleaning and sanitation and retrofitting buildings to make it possible intense security installations we're going to have to change the windows the doors we're going to have to change the HVAC everything all this costs a lot of money we cobbled together 25 30 000 from friends and family and savings but we're gonna be about 50 to 75 000 short just to give you an idea of what it cost to start up one of these places and without the provisional license or some kind of assurance to the banks we've gotten almost nowhere there's a efficiency program for energy improvements it's in partnership with BS ECU so we started our club with our Hill Cannabis Accounting BS ECU in an attempt to be able to qualify for that program we both have impeccable credit we're gonna buy highly efficient LADs and we worked closely with EVT but there's still no answer yet and I suspect that's because we have no license so you know we can put all the business plans together that we want but I think that the banks want to see a license another issue is we're trying to put together futures contracts with some of the integrated license holders or the anticipated integrated license holders that sort of already made themselves known that they can start purchasing in May those conversations have been necessarily brief again because we don't really have a license another issue in Vermont is the lack of commercial property available to folks we are leasing a property because frankly we're terrified we wouldn't be able to find one with the power needs and the security upgradeability the access to high speed internet to run the security cameras and those kinds of things so basically we're just burning money on a lease waiting to hear about some of the requirements and sort of shopping for lights and looking for financing so really the licensing fee is the least of our worries when you're talking about you know a total investment of close to a hundred thousand dollars just to start and then the other unique thing about that business is once you flip the lights you're at least four months away from making any kind of money just the life cycle of the plant is the way that it works at the same time the kind of electricity you're pulling out of the wall is thousands of dollars a month now our five-year plan has us looking at being carbon-neutral but in order to do that we have to purpose build a facility put solar panels on it and a battery certainly the first three years is going to be at this least place and so all that to say I don't want to take up all the time I think I'm getting the wrap up the wrap up signal here all that to say this provisional license I think is it's going to touch on everything that you want to see it's going to touch on social equity because not very many people can just like money on fire waiting for the rules to be written waiting for it it's going to touch on efficiency because it's going to allow folks to go out and get efficient lights and try to be more carbon conscious it's going to allow women-owned businesses like my wife and indigenous and BIPOC communities to be able to get into this thing and have some credibility when they go to the banks and give us just some security because there's a lot of people that are participating in this market right now that are at least in places waiting to hear and some of them do have black market ties and can make money in the black market to help float along we're not in that position we're not that kind of folk and we want to you know have some sign of kind of security so we're really advocating for the provisional license only with that yeah thank you thank you thanks for joining us yeah thanks for having me yeah anyone online yeah so first on the list is an international house of green international house of green you can fund me yourself and if you wouldn't mind just state in your name my name is Yeryn Plantillas a current LLC owner in Vermont and one of the things I wanted to touch on is would this week licenses will also be distributed to labs looking to open up in Vermont this provisional license yes very applied to labs yeah perfect and the other thing that I want to touch on is as a well as a person impacted by the by the cannabis more financing is very hard to come by okay especially with banks so like the person before me spoke being able to have at least some sort of grounding from you know some backup from Vermont saying hey you know we are we're considering opening the market not only that but we're going to give these people a chance to open up a store a lab a farm in here that would give us a big footstep on trying to gain those financial needs yeah thanks great yeah I think it's mutually beneficial for the licensees and for the board so thank you anyone else on thank you on it yep we have Amelia is next hi everyone um so I just want to touch on what I see is growing anti caregiver and anti home gross sentiment in both the symptom relief oversight committee and the medical subcommittee recently um something that we haven't really talked about yet in any of these meetings is autonomy it's no secret really that being chronically ill or disabled is stigmatized in our society and that comes with a lot of internalized shame surrounding medication cannabis is unique in the sense that a patient has total autonomy in deciding everything from product to strain to the person growing their medicine and that's really important the ability to choose gives patients a kind of independence that isn't seen in any other kind of medicine and a comprehensive caregiver program is essential to that autonomy and an expanded caregivers program is going to be essential to that autonomy moving forward by fricating the definition of a caregiver however directly attacks that autonomy that that attacks who can grow your cannabis where it can be grown etc and as far as as far as lab testing being a concern for the caregiver patient ratio there's four hundred thousand dollars sitting in a medical cannabis fund that is meant to be used to the benefit of patients and I honestly can't think of a better use for it than subsidizing caregiver testing to provide clean cannabis patients the only threat I see that a caregiver centered program and an increased patient caregiver ratio poses is directly to the medical dispensaries profits that's all I had to say thanks Amelia all right next we have and I apologize if I don't pronounce your first name correctly Cheryl Murray Powell yes hello how are you all I've been listening in my name is Cheryl Murray Powell Esquire I am a cannabis agricultural and dietary supplement attorney I've been practicing in this space I've been an activist legalization expert for a number of years I'm also the ASTM D-37 Committee on Cannabis's Diversity Equity and Inclusion Chair so I just wanted to congratulate you on the discussion that you're having about social equity the objective criteria that you are using to identify equity applicants I am also the business development manager for creative services Inc a 45 year old screening company and we have recently released a product that actually does equity verification to make sure that these equity licenses actually go to equity equity the correct equity applicants and so that everything is executed as intended by by legislature so I would love an opportunity to present to you all on your next meeting about social equity the work that we're doing at ASTM D-37 with regards to social equity but in addition to that creative services screening products specifically around equity verification so thank you for your time great job great discussion and I really love the part about impacted family members being included in the definition of who would be eligible for equity so I would just like to know what would be the best contact or what would be the next steps in making an official presentation if you could go to our website we have a little button for public input and I think that would be the best way it goes we all look at those comments I was actually filling it out at the same time all right so that is perfect I'm just said the comments part of that page but great job I mean definitely on on on par with what's happening across the country it's an exciting time for the cannabis industry an exciting time with regards to equity and parity so thank you so much for your work thank you thank you all right next we have Tito Bern Tito feel free to unmute hi there I definitely have I'm unmuted on my end can you hear me okay thank you for hearing me I just want to second what Amelia was saying I agree 100% I feel like patient interests are taking a back seat to preserving profits for the current dispensaries that that's just how it feels also I have to definitely agree with with the idea of subsidizing testing I think it's crucial to preserving and expanding the medical program as well as guaranteeing success for small growers in the new marketplace thank you thanks Tito that's all for virtual hands can we do phones now yeah so if you've joined by the phone you dialed in you can make a public comment just hit star six to unmute yourself all right well I would just remind everyone who's watching we will have our kind of after hours public comment period next Tuesday the 28th from six to seven p.m. physical location will be here in our boardroom and but you know feel free to join the by the link that will be available on our website and you know I hope to just hear from you all right I don't have anything else motion to adjourn so moved seconded all in favor aye aye