 We're going to get to go. Awesome, thanks Kyle. So my name is James Pepper. I'm the chair of the Vermont Cannabis Control Board. Today we are doing our traditional monthly after hours public comment meeting. And glad to see we have a number of folks that have joined us. I know this is always kind of a tough time to be thinking about government work. But I'm glad to see that. Just as a very quick reminder to everyone who's watching, we have filed our five rules at this point. The first two rules have made it through the ICAR process, the Interagency Committee on Administrative Rules, with very little, very few edits. And so now we are fully in the point in time where we need to receive public comment and think about and consider every comment that we receive. So I'm not going to waste any more time. If Kyle is our kind of in-person presence, he's at 89 Main Street in Montpelier. And what we'll do is just take public comment. We'll start with the folks that have joined in our physical location. It doesn't look like there's anyone there. From there, we'll go to people that have joined via the link. Raise your virtual hand if you'd like to make a comment. And we'll go in the order that you raise your hand. We like to try to keep comments to roughly three minutes. But we do, during this public comment period, encourage people to jump back in the queue after they made a comment. We'll try to let people that haven't commented already kind of skip ahead. But other than that, please feel free to kind of give us your thoughts, give us your advice, give us your recommendations. And we'll start with Fran Janik. Good evening. It's nice to see you guys out there having a great holiday. One second while I get my copy up. I would say hello to Commissioner Pepper, Ms. Halbert, Mr. Harris, and all present today. Thank you for having public comment meetings and for taking my comments. During the 2021, you have all worked at a fast pace to begin to evolve the cannabis program. We all appreciate the challenges that have presented themselves and the serious consideration that you have given our concerns. Since 2012, my focus has been on the improvement of the medical part of the program. From the MMJ programs inception, this effort had been limited by a short-sighted legislation creating rules that even today limit access to clean, affordable, and effective cannabis therapy for many Vermonters. I witnessed the previous commissioner of the DPS testify in a House committee meeting chaired by Representative Pugh for S216. He thought Vermont's program was a great program. Mr. Wallin simply refused to answer questions posed by the chair of Representative Pugh. For the record, the Vermont MMJ program has been scored nationally by nationally recognized groups as a complete failure. The DPS, it should be noted the DPS was given this program because the Vermont Health Department refused to acknowledge the health benefits that can be derived from the use of this plan. The DPS, in my considered opinion, failed patients in many ways. The administrators, including but not limited to Ms. Wells and Mr. Wallin, focused on containment and control of access to affordable medical cannabis therapy. In my own case, and that of another patient, our Hipporites were violated by administrative staff. In my case, in 2018 at Hempfest in Burk, Vermont, a salesman, Chris Copley, from then Champlain Valley Dispensory, related a conversation that he had with Ms. Wells about me. Ms. Wells told Mr. Copley about conversations that I had had with her. Mr. Copley told me that she laughed at the concerns that I had raised. He then told me that Ms. Wells had referred to me in a derogatory manner. This showed me how cozy and incestuous the DPS had become with the licensees. As I have testified to and witnessed, there has been an attempt by the DPS to rewrite statute in S-16, concerning the caregivers, consistent efforts to cater to the integrated licensees and to cover up a number of violations that have occurred. Additionally, the needs of these corporations have been openly supported over the needs of patients by the actions of certain legislators. It should be noted that it is highly probable that many individuals who currently have or have in the past had been in the past administration's health power in state government or invested in or have received compensation from the integrated licensees. As we move forward to 2022, when you will take control of this program, I am hopeful that you will move away from a mindset of containment and control, market definition of need and pricing of the RAND model, and work to eliminate what many, including myself, perceive and have witnessed to be an inappropriate relationship between the current program administrators, some public and private citizens, and the integrated licensees. In my mind, the administrator's primary concern should be to create a positive and supportive environment that serves patient needs and confidence. Going forward, I would ask that we not create barriers for and limit the rights of licensed patients and caregivers. If our goal is to create a program that will encourage for monitors to become registered, I feel that it is incumbent upon us to create rules that foster a positive environment, and that does not rely on over control, fines and criminalization, unequal burden of testing and registration and other disparities involving different rules for citizen caregivers and corporate interests. We will be supporting your good action from you and asking our legislators to support those important changes. And thank you all again for your efforts to date. Thank you for receiving my comments tonight. Thank you Fran. And we did receive that in writing, so we'll post that to our website as well. So thank you. Thank you very much. Do we move to old growth organics? Hi, thank you so much you guys for being here and for all the hard work you guys have done. I really hope you guys were able to relax during the holidays. So I've been starting to run business numbers and lay out a business plan. And as I was doing that, I realized that the mixed tier that you guys offered is not quite going to cut what we were hoping to make happen. And then so I guess I just now I'm kind of arriving to that place of running all these numbers. And I'm like, oh my gosh, this mixed tier, there's no place to grow in it either. And so I'm just asking that you in an ideal situation would offer maybe three, two or three mixed tier levels. And if nothing else to increase the amount in the mixed tier, my partner and I will be considered a small business but not a small cultivator. And we love growing outside. We're actually gonna grow indoor in a greenhouse, hopefully a four seasoned greenhouse and are all about staying organic and sustainable and engaging the community. And in order to do that, we need a much bigger, but we do not wanna do an indoor, a big indoor or just simply an indoor. We really wanna have both so that we can be outside but patients or not patients in this case, customers really want flower and the only the best indoor quality flower or the best quality flower is indoor. You can't really reach that level without door. So anyways, I just ask that you add a couple of levels to the mixed tier, that would be fantastic. The other couple of things, I haven't seen anything else on this yet, if I've mentioned it before is just to leave out seasonal employees and the definition for employees and all the requirements that come along with having an employee, that would just get really crazy as a small business. And then also to reconsider allowing children in cannabis establishments and leave it up to the parents to really kind of manage that safety and maybe increase educational requirements and establishments, something like that. Instead, we've actually entered into this so that we could be at home, parents together and really engage our children in being outside and all of these things. So that would be extremely difficult if that stays. So I think that's all, hopefully I made sense. It's hard for me to talk since I'm usually bandaged shut. It's a weird brain thing. So hopefully you guys got that again. Thank you so much. And Merry Christmas, happy holidays. Thank you. Thank you very much. Tito. Hey everybody, thanks for getting together tonight. Our biggest problem right now is that we don't know how the CBES, which for anybody listening that doesn't know is commercial building efficiency standards. How are these CBES going to apply to cannabis grows? Obviously we only have five months to go and our construction has come to a complete standstill. We just don't know how to proceed because we just don't know how the CBES is going to affect our construction. Mainly with ventilation. Obviously office building is going to require a way different ventilation than a grow. Also in my particular style of growing, I like to grow in a sealed building. So I actually don't like any ventilation at all if it's not necessary. Having to have the insulation on the building be up to R40, if you're a small grower who's coming out of the legacy market and this is stuff that could really, really add tremendous cost to any construction or even just may just stop them from entering the market altogether. Sprinklers, how is that going to play out? Sprinkler systems like the one that the burn gallery had to have installed are, I mean that could cost $100,000 to install that. And so if we could just fast track some guidance for small growers and that way we could know how to proceed. And I think the biggest question still because there still seems to be this idea that canopy can still refer to just flowering canopy and is that completely dead in the water? If it is, let us know if there is a chance that that can mean flowering canopy changes everything. It gives all those home protections to all these small growers that need to enter the market at the same time. If not, then any kind of grow is going to be considered commercial and have to meet these CVS standards because a thousand square feet total, let's be honest, that's not even craft, that's hobby, that's hobbyist. So if you're going to say a thousand square feet is flowering canopy, okay that's definitely a small business, we can call that a small grow, we can call that a commercial enterprise that's entering this market. But anything less than that is just hobby status. And so please let us know if we can fast-track answers on how to proceed with construction in reference to CVS. Thank you guys, have a great night, and happy holidays everybody. Thank you Tito. Next on my list is Fine Bud Farms. Hey guys, this is Eduardo Haiman. Just first of all, thank you guys for everything, all the work you've done, looks good. But I just wanted to say, that's been said many times before, it's pretty imperative I think, and vital for small cultivators, particularly strictly outdoor growers to have direct retail sales, to consumers that access is, it would make up for a lot of initial costs and also be a great way to choose Vermont craft through farmers markets or whatnot. And also, I guess the other thing I wanted to say is regarding tracking, just want to ploy all to think about, all the waste that's generated from these programs, these single use plastic tags. So, and once again, for small cultivators, that's just an extra unnecessary burden. But that's pretty much all I had to say. So, thanks again for what you've done. Thanks for this time and take care, happy new year. Thanks Eduardo. I've got Ron W. Hi, this is Max. I'm going to be on Google. I just, first of all, here is these comments, because I think this is super, super important, sure that we can nail this. And I just want to emphatically echo what Sona said. Specifically, in rule one, section three, 1.3.2, the continued ambiguity around whether or not it's going to be flowering canopy as for multiple times already on this call alone, it's going to make people's business on that technique. So it would be great to kind of make our business plans. Most important for us and their cultivators out there, construction has also come to a screeching halt. And I would say once we have guidance, once we have gotten clarity from the fire marshals and all of these local officials that we're currently speaking to, it's probably going to take us about three months additional work to get market ready once we figure out all those details. So it's kind of pretty close right now. And then we're in rule two, section 2.5.3, really the energy standards around the CBES. I've kind of mentioned this in the past, we're totally willing to do this, but it's just not going to make sense for smaller cultivators and even mid-sized cultivators. I've had specific conversations with the fire marshals. They've also indicated that we're possibly going to be held to the international building code, the NFPA1 and 101 2015 editions and any other NFPA code that applies as a direct quote. And so those codes cost, it's a book that you have to buy and it costs over $80 and it's quite large. So really realistically, if you're going to be compliant, you're going to have to hire an architect and a mechanical engineer. And just given the labor market right now, that's a pretty big stretch for anyone who's not extremely well-capitalized. So really the short version is just like, there needs to be some sort of fast-tracked, lower barrier to entry that maybe even is temporary for these smaller and mid-sized cultivators to get off the ground just because right now it's a little bit untenable and unclear. Thank you. Thanks, Ron. So just for folks that have joined since we started, this is our monthly public comment meeting. If you'd like to make a public comment, please raise your virtual hand. If you join via phone, you can hit star six to unmute yourself. I actually think that today we might want to do things just slightly differently. I hate to spring this on Julie and Kyle, but if we don't have any people that have raised their hands, I almost feel like maybe we should talk about some of the issues that have been raised by these callers, by these participants while we wait for more people to raise their hands. We might never get anyone else to raise their hands. But... Bye, bye, man. Yeah. But again, if you've joined and you'd like to make a public comment, please raise your virtual hand. We'll call on you. And other than that, I mean, I've been taking notes. I assume you guys have too. I don't know if anything jumps out. Obviously, if we start with Fran's comment, we do have a responsibility to fundamentally change the medical program. I think what we've seen in other states is that, the numbers dwindle when adult rec comes online. And that's, if the numbers dwindle in our program, the program doesn't exist anymore. So I think we do have a responsibility to really try our best to re-imagine some of the adult rec or the medical program. We are gonna have a bill. It's not gonna be our bill, but we are gonna have a bill to kind of change some of the statutory constructs that bind us and try and make it, allow more caregivers per patient, try and loosen up the program a little bit. So it's more, so that there's more incentives to join and the costs are gonna decrease. But again, we talked about this at our last meeting, not that everyone has the luxury to watch those. I really see our medical program, the solutions there is a two-phase process. One is to make sure that as the adult rec market comes online, that we hold our current patients on the registry harmless. I don't wanna see products that patients rely on disappear from the shelves or there not be enough kind of biomass products set aside for our current patients. And so really I wanna weather this transition as a phase one approach and then really think about how to kind of how to create a more substantial program. I know that I'm not the words that Fran use where it's a failure. I mean, I can see his perspective, but I wouldn't go that far, but I do think that there are some significant changes that need to happen there. Anything you wanna throw in on that comment? I agree with you, Chair Pepper, that we do have a responsibility to fundamentally change it and continue the patient access first and foremost, I guess would be my thoughts there. And I appreciate Mr. Janik's comments. Yeah, I mean, I would agree with both of you and with Fran to certainly to extend. I think if folks have been following along with the three of us over the last eight months or so culture around how we intend to to have jurisdiction over both the rec side and the medical side is something that we have fundamentally focused on and tried to really build, I think, from the ground up. And I'm not gonna speak to how DPS views the medical program because that's outside of what we're focused on here, but I would say rest assured that it will be a focus to fundamentally change the culture around the medical program. And it's patients and everybody involved moving forward. I think that's a priority of the three of us for sure. So again, I don't wanna short circuit anyone who wants to make a public comment. Right now, Julie, Kyle and I are doing things a little bit differently than we traditionally do or responding to or having an open conversation about some of the comments we've heard already. But please, if you've joined and would like to make a public comment, we will take your comments as a priority. Pepper, before we hear from Ben, can I just say one thing? Because it's something that we hear time and time again and it's come up in a couple of comments already today. And the definition of canopy is total plant canopy. I don't think it's ambiguous. I think that's what the statute says. We cannot by ourselves, meaning Julie, James and myself, allow folks to just function on a flowering canopy basis. It's a total canopy basis. So, I certainly understand and appreciate how folks are educating us on the difference on how flowering canopy and total canopy can fundamentally change certain license types that we're working with and how it can help small businesses really find more of a footing in this market, especially our smaller cultivation tiers, which we've already heard. It's gonna be hard to focus whether it's a thousand foot square foot canopy or something a little bit larger than that. It's gonna be hard to focus that on as your primary means of income. And I think the three of us understand that. We're thinking about ways that we can help people to the extent that we're able to, but that definition of canopy is set in statute and it's not really up for debate whether or not we as a board can change that to a flowering canopy without legislative help. So, I just wanna clear that up for the folks listening. I think we heard it from Max, we heard it from Tito. I could be wrong there, but I think those are the two folks that mentioned it. You know, I know we heard about mixed hearing and that's something that I think we should all consider. But for the definition of canopy as it's laid out in Act 164, it's laid out in 164. Right. And again, I do think that, you know, the legislature when they crafted that definition of small cultivator, you know, they don't have a lot of the legislature does not have, you know, any sort of special expertise in growing or growing practices. I thought, you know, they thought that a thousand square foot canopy seemed like a large enough space to have a very kind of moderate, modest income or supplemental income. And I think that's what they were thinking. I would say that if there is a desire to shift the definition of canopy, it has to happen legislatively just to underscore what Kyle was saying there. It has to come through the legislature. We can create a tier of cultivation that, you know, we have a 2,500 square foot tier that would allow kind of, you know, a much greater kind of differentiation between vegetation and flowering canopy. But, you know, we've been given a task to kind of make accommodations for small cultivators and they, you know, the legislature defined that for us and they defined canopy. But anyway, why don't we move to Ben? Ben, would you like to join us? Hi, everybody, good evening. Thank you for hosting these. Thank you for honestly a great second half of 2021. It's been great attending these and joining you for meetings. And also just want to specifically thank you all for your presence at events and meetings outside of your own. I know that Kyle, Julie, James, you all individually have made it a point to be a part of different community events. James, you were with the BT normal. I think it was last week, the week before, you know, that was just a really great event, good for social equity applicants to hear from all three of you. I'm really looking forward to the programming that you have planned for 2022. I think this next year is going to just be nonstop. And I think we've built great rapport within the cannabis community here in Vermont. One comment on, of course, because you know I do this at every meeting, just in case there's anyone who's here who hasn't heard the call to action, we really do hope to see social consumption move forward. We know that you all are continuing to advocate for it as an equity issue, but we really hope to see the legislators recognize it as an important part of equity in the state. And then also on the topic of social equity licenses with delivery, which I know is not necessarily specific to social equity, but it's where the conversation seems to be living, you know, any opportunities to expand that license type so that it's not directly tied to retail and dependent on working with a licensed retailer would be great. Again, just giving the licensee more opportunity than is currently included in that license type description, especially when I hear cultivators talk about having direct access to customers. I think that just as likely as customers coming to the cultivation site is a model where these cultivators are able to work with licensed delivery operators to deliver their goods directly to the consumers. It's something that in markets such as California as they've become more developed, we've seen some of the most loyal customers in the brands with the largest followings, especially in the therapeutic department. Getting the products directly to consumer is a huge benefit for everybody. So thank you again so much and enjoy the rest of this year, this last week. Thanks so much. Thank you, Ben. So anyone who would like to make a comment who's joined via the link, please raise your virtual hand. We'll call you in the order that you raise your hand. If you made a comment already, feel free to raise your hand again. Anyone who's joined by a phone, you can hit star six to unmute yourself and make a comment. So I'm happy to kind of continue the conversation. So we heard from old growth about adding more mixed-year license types. There was kind of a thought in my mind a while back that we have this one license type per individual or entity rule. I did have a thought maybe back a while back that as long as you're not exceeding any sort of, and we could kind of figure this out, exceeding any sort of maximum canopy that you should be allowed to grow both indoor and outdoor. You could get an outdoor license, cultivator license and an indoor one as a way to kind of really encourage outdoor grow. Because I think what we heard from old growth or organics is that there's certainly for the kind of fine flower and I know I might draw some criticism there, you wanna grow indoor, but we also very much wanna encourage outdoor to anyone that's growing indoor, if we can have them grow a certain amount of plants outdoor, it's all the better. The more that the kind of market is supplied by outdoor, the better it is for the environment, the better it is for Vermont. So I mean, that's just one kind of thing that's been floating in the back of my mind about, you know, we might run into issues with the legislative intent around one license per entity, but there's maybe a way we can kind of either that or just create more mixed-year license types. So. It spoke to me when old growth organics said that there's no place to grow within it. And I don't think that that was our intent necessarily was to have this sort of just stagnant sort of license type. So I think either pepper what you're suggesting or having additional tiers is a good idea. And I think we should at some point visit the children in cannabis establishments. I think when we think of it, most often we're thinking or at least when I think of it, I'm thinking about retail establishments, but it was an excellent point that she brought up as well in terms of parents who are trying to work from home or, you know, if they're trying to have, you know, a growing establishment where they can also offer some sort of childcare. I think we need to think as part of a good employee benefit. I think we need to think that through as well. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Let's keep thinking. Yeah. Why don't we move back? We have Jeffrey and then Jesse Lynn. Jeffrey first. I think he, I think you, I don't know if he's on his phone, but he disappeared from my list. Yeah, same here. Why don't we move to Jesse Lynn? Oh. Hey there. Thanks so much for having me and doing these public comments as always. Just wanted to mention a few things. I just quickly reviewed this afternoon, the rule three for medicals. I wanted to just throw a couple of things out there. When it comes to somebody getting access to have a medical card, if they're homeless and don't have an actual address, I wanna make sure that's not a barrier. Also in the section where it talks about who's allowed in the dispensary, it does say a healthcare provider is allowed with a dispens, a registered patient, but I would love to add in there that students are allowed. My hope is moving forward more both medical and maybe horticultural students and people like that can include this in part of their education. And if they were maybe allowed, that would be fabulous. The other thing I wanted to mention, I think sticking with the two ounce maximum limit is not quite enough. So if we could look at extending that, I would look at hopefully, at least three or four ounces possibly. Julie, I agree with you and thank you for bringing that up. I think children in retail spaces or just having that availability or some kind of plan around that. Otherwise, I think I'm the one that's mentioned. You are gonna have people shopping in stores with children locked in cars. So if we could avoid that and we know that is a social equity issue when it comes to people who cannot afford childcare or don't have family or people to watch their child, it doesn't mean they're not gonna come shopping in a cannabis store. And lastly, as always, I wanna bring up education and mention that. It doesn't seem in rule in what I've just kind of previewed tonight in rule three that there's much mentioned about education. And I would love to see that be, definitely pushed a little bit more specifically and especially for the medical dispensaries and the staff there. I know I've been chatting with a few people about Massachusetts program and how they have a specific licensing structure for education, but I would just love to see a little bit more in these rules maybe regarding mandating some of that education. So I think that was all my little bullet points. So thank you guys so much. Thank you, Jesse Lynn. Jeffrey, are you back with us? Good evening. Can you hear me okay? Yes. Awesome. Excellent. Happy holidays everybody and apologies for those technical difficulties a moment ago. I have all my phone, so it's a new interface, but anyway, so listen, I don't really like to chime into these. I'm trying to give those who can't typically attend CCB meetings a chance to comment, but I just wanted to reinforce what seems to be a theme this evening and I appreciate the sort of shift back to policy from previous weeks. So excellent tone and positions everybody this evening, but board, it seems to me that the public is aware of what you guys are capable of when it comes to canopy definition, but I think what we're all, what we would all agree upon is what we're hearing this evening is there's clearly public support for you guys to move on something similar to what you've done not too long ago, say on the THC caps, which has prescribed a legislative recommendation. So in a report, either a preexisting one or what that's to come out, I think there's another one in early July or January, sorry, to change that definition to canopy, to flowering canopy only. That is vital to the equity of small farms and small businesses. And I would put that on the same sort of baseline as the cultivation tiers. Someone earlier spoke to needing more sophistication or clarity of category. So we recommend four to one cultivation ratio as you guys are aware. And that would help address some of these things in addition to a slightly more sophisticated definition of outdoor mix light and indoor that uses energy usage by square footage. This is what other states do. It's an emerging standard in sort of the craft marketplace for much should adopt that as well. It would just require a slight change in some of your previous rules and recommendations like legislatively. So I just want to pop in and say that. Again, I hope everyone is well. Thanks for hearing me and here's. Thank you, Jeffrey. So again, for anyone who's joined, this is our traditional monthly after hours public comment meeting. If you'd like to make a public comment, please raise a virtual hand. If you've joined by phone, hit star six on you yourself to make a comment. We'll take them in the order that they come in. We'll be here until at least seven o'clock. And I guess if I don't... Oh, Jesse Lynn, you wanna give us a comment? Yeah, thanks. I didn't know if you were gonna take second comments, but it doesn't seem like there's a lot of people chiming in and I forgot to mention something. I know I've mentioned it before, but I'll continue to mention it. And again, thank you, Julie, for this as well. As I really do want you guys to keep having the conversation and really consider how to put patients first and to look at patients able to shop at adult use without paying those taxes. If you guys can continue that conversation or maybe you have, but that's something I really wanna push for because I do feel that could be as much as that could be the nail in the coffin. Financially, I'm looking absolutely from the other perspective and that could be the answer to help patients have the access in a program that hasn't been as supportive and helpful as it could be over time. So if we made that accessible and affordable and that an option, I really think we would have one of the best and most positive kick-ass programs. So thank you. Thank you, Jesse. Doug, do you wanna join us? Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Okay, I just, I'm getting a late start to everything. So maybe these have been covered, but I haven't seen quite where there's a way to move forward going next year. Say I have a tier two license. Say they're only giving out 100 tier three. Do I have any room to move up to a tier three or how is that gonna work? Other things that I was wondering too is it says tier two indoor is still classified as a small cultivator, but only tier one outdoor. And then that changes when we can apply for licensing. So as an outdoor cultivator, I need as much time as possible in the spring to get things going. Is there any kind of provisional license or any kind of look at how we could start earlier indoors to get going outdoors? I think that's all I've got. Thanks for that, Doug. So again, we'll jump to anyone who raises their hands, but I think a lot of good points have been raised and I feel like they deserve some conversation. Let me see from my notes. I would really encourage folks to look back at our meeting around fire safety. We brought in kind of two people from the central office at fire safety back in July. I forget the exact date, but they kind of laid out what they're looking for with respect to cultivators. Their main concern I think really comes down to product manufacturers, particularly those tier one product manufacturers, they use solvent-based extraction and retailers. They kind of gave us the impression and it's starting to sound like maybe we need to have more conversations with fire safety to really kind of come to some sort of understanding with them about especially kind of small and medium-sized cultivators. But their opinion was that this process should be relatively painless. They clear I think 95% of their applicants within 30 days and I know that that doesn't help when you have to potentially hire an architect or an engineer. I know that those sorts of costs are prohibitive, but I do think that we will be issuing guidance ourselves as a board to really help people understand our rules, understand the process and we're gonna need to do a little bit of work on our, and to really understand what our interaction and what our applicants interaction with fire safety is gonna be. I think that, so essentially stay tuned for more information on that. Julie, Kyle, anything on just the fire safety piece? Nothing that you haven't said. I think we've all heard there's a lot of confusion and potentially some misinformation going on around folks, especially in this manufacturing that are seeking either manufacturing to your license. So part of that's on us to make sure we're talking with our sister agencies to make sure everybody's kind of headed upwind on the same beat, so to speak. So, but as Pepper alluded to, we'll make sure folks understand exactly where the starting points are, who to contact and how to make this a smooth of a process, that we can recognizing that there will need to be some type of investment, most likely depending on a specific site that somebody's trying to do a specific operation in with a specific license. So it gets pretty specific to a site, but we can still try and issue guidance to the best that we can to help folks understand expectations. Chair Pepper, I wonder if we had planned to coordinate with fire safety on our guidance, either have them review it or contribute to it to sort of have one set of guidance rather than, I don't know if they intend to create their own, but I think to the extent that we can put everything in one document for folks, that's probably the clearest and the simplest. I think that was the only thing I wanted to add. I totally agree. Essentially fire safety is divided up into regions and we certainly don't want a regional approach to this. We want one approach and that has nothing to, that's not a criticism of fire safety. I just think that we need to be as clear as possible. This is a new industry. This is a new, they've been dealing very closely with our hemp cultivators, but a lot of that happens outside of course, and they don't have jurisdiction over outside cultivation. So their jurisdiction really focuses on retail and product manufacturing in the hemp side of things. And so now that we're bringing this new industry online, we really need to be clear with them and they need to be clear with us about what the expectation is. So yes, absolutely. I would go back and watch that video. I would encourage others. I think it was July 23rd. I can't quite remember the date, but it was two folks from fire safety came and talked about their jurisdiction and what they expect and it's kind of what their process is, what their fees are, and it's not, it didn't seem at the time overly burdensome, but we certainly need some more clarity at this point. It was July 22nd for folks who look for it for me too, yeah. Thank you. Kyle, did you want to add something? Not necessarily to this, but I thought of it as a good segue into talking about commercial building energy standards that I know have been raised here and other folks have raised them through public comment, and certainly can appreciate how having to abide by some of these standards presents a problem for some folks that are new to these standards and new to being regulated by a state entity. I would encourage, and I know Tito said this, I'm not gonna talk specifically to Tito, but anybody that has questions or concerns about, first of all, they're still proposed. They're not final rules. We all understand that, I hope at this point, but to reach out to Efficiency Vermont, because a lot of these energy standards were designed to be not so burdensome that you could not contact some state agency partners to receive rebates on doing a lot of specific things, whether it's with your grow operation or otherwise. These standards were, as they relate to what we're trying to accomplish here, made in consultation with multiple state agencies and consulting groups, and of course, through public comment, that I think will help a lot of what we're trying to accomplish as an industry be a little bit more forward thinking and also not really run afoul a lot of climate goals that the state is currently trying to move toward. That being said, certainly appreciate how a lot of these standards and new things that need to be abided by can be a burden on a lot of small cultivators. I think where, and I'm somebody with an environmental background and I want us to be a forward thinking environmental program, part of the issue, I think, for me when I help, when I started putting these proposals on paper is Act 164 allows us to make a lot of accommodations for small cultivators, except when it comes to environmental and energy standards. So that's the one caveat there where it could be a challenge for us to do much more than, you know, for small cultivators than for the industry, I think at broad, you know, that being said, we've gotten creative in certain ways. I think there's opportunity to be creative here as well, but I just want folks to recognize that there is, I know that these proposal, these rules are proposed, but I've had conversations with Efficiency Vermont and other partners during this proposal process, and they want to hear from folks who think that they, you know, might need help understanding certain aspects of our regulatory scheme and how they might be able to help folks from a rebate, refund, so on and so forth perspective to really make sure that they're buying something that will help not only their pocket, but the environment moving forward. Thanks, Kyle. Fran, do you want to make a comment? Yes, just to follow up on what Kyle said, a couple of years ago, I was in touch with Efficiency Vermont and I was actually able to get them to replace for free up to $3,000 worth of lighting for medical patients. They were taking away the HIDs and giving LEDs, and I would imagine now we could go to LECs. And if you're in touch with those people, maybe you could suggest that they revitalize that program. Some of them may not know about it, but we did it for a number of patients that were successful. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, Efficiency Vermont is a state-supported organization. They're there to help our Vermont residents. They're there to provide rebates. They're there to kind of increase our, lessen our carbon footprint in Vermont. And so anyone that feels like these issues are impossible to decipher or these rules are too complex, yeah, Efficiency Vermont is a great resource for you. So again, anyone who'd like to make a public comment, please raise your virtual hand. We'll be here until for about 15 more minutes. And I'm just gonna keep the conversation going, responding to some of the comments we've had until someone raises their hand. We heard Ben around social consumption and delivery licenses. So just a reminder that our exploratory committee, well, first of all, I should remind folks that those are explicitly prohibited under our enabling legislation by statute. The legislature said, no delivery, no social consumption, CCB, the board give us some recommendations, whether we should allow these things and if we allow them what they should look like. We asked our exploratory subcommittee of our 14 member advisory committee to look into both of these issues, delivery and social consumption. That meeting, I think if I recall, happened on December 9th and it was recorded so people can go back and look at it. The subcommittee very much supported delivery and supported it exclusive to social equity applicants for a certain number of years. Social consumption, of course, raises a lot of concerns from a highway safety perspective, mostly. But I think our subcommittee really felt that it was important also because again, there is no legal place to consume cannabis if you're not a homeowner in Vermont. And we have asked, I mean, our models, our economic models rely heavily on tourists coming in and purchasing cannabis here. And we really would be kind of turning a blind eye to where they're going to consume. And of course, what was raised over and over again is it's a crime, it's a civil violation, but it is a crime to consume in public. And we've seen disparate policing, disparate arrests, disparate citations, disparate enforcement for communities of color when there is kind of a law enforcement interaction. And so we, I think, will be able to get to a place as a board, certainly our advisory committee, I think has gotten to a place where social consumption is a recommendation that they're willing to support. And I think we have an advisory, a full advisory committee meeting on these two issues early in January, I think the first Thursday in January to discuss these issues in preparation for our January 15th report. So I guess on those two issues, stay tuned. We'll hear from our advisory committee, we'll debate it as a board and we'll decide whether or not we can support social consumption, but it also, it's not just a kind of binary question about yes or no to social consumption or delivery. It's what does it look like? What are the fees? How do we kind of address, anticipate and address the political concerns around this, the kind of public safety, public health concerns around both of these. So, if anyone from the public has good ideas about that, please tune into those meetings, please help us kind of create the kind of policy and the justifications for the policy. Anyone wanna talk about social consumption or delivery? Sure, I think we've talked mostly about delivery as it relates to an exclusive license for social equity applicants. And I agree with you, Chair Pepper, that we need to think about what the impact is and what it looks like. I think Ben also made the point about not having that delivery necessarily attached to a retailer. I think what was proposed originally from the subcommittee was that it'd be sort of like a checkbox or a subset of that particular license. And the independence that can come with it as a separate license, I think is probably really useful to social equity applicants. And then I think in terms of the rules and legislatively, we also need to consider what the, and I can't remember, it's 18 VSA and I can't remember the rest, like what section for the drug-free schools and sale within 500 feet. So we wanna make sure that we, if we do delivery licenses, we wanna protect those that are doing the delivering if they're doing, or have some sort of public education if there's delivery within 500 feet of a school, what that means. I don't wanna set anyone up for disaster. Kyle? I don't got anything else to add right now. Okay. Well, then I agree with everything that's been said on this issue. Yeah. Can I say one thing? One thing actually though. Well, it's gonna be in response to what Jeffrey said, Pepper, so why don't I let you get your thought out and then I'll, I'm trying to bring it back to a common theme that I don't want the narrative to really take hold of when it comes to a lot of what we're trying to accomplish. But why don't you, why don't you go first? Yeah. So Jeffrey's comment was really around that we should be making a recommendation around the definition of canopy to the legislature. I mean, that's what I took from it. Again, you know, it's hard for us as regulators to act on our own. I mean, our job is to fulfill a legislative intent. Our job is to use the authority that was granted to us to achieve a legislative directive. And so when I think about us, all the recommendations that we've made to date have been required for us to make. This is one that would not be required for us to make. That doesn't mean that we can't do it, but it does mean that we really need to find the place in our enabling legislation and part of our legislative intent to say, this is why because of this directive that you gave us, we think that we need to go above what you've asked us to do and make affirmative recommendations around canopy size. Because again, there's nothing in our legislation that would prevent someone from having a larger operation than 1,000 square feet. You know, having a larger license tier and using, you know, part of that license, you know, part of that canopy space for their vegetative, for their clones, their mothers, et cetera, and using, you know, 1,000 square feet of it for flowering canopy. So again, we need to just confront the fact that if we do this, if we make a recommendation around canopy size, to me, I feel like we need to tie it back to our fundamental mission. And Jeffrey did raise the question of equity. Equity is in our legislative directive to create a safe, equitable cannabis market. So I mean, we could try to kind of tie it back to that, but if we're gonna make this recommendation, I personally would wanna see it tied specifically to one of our legislative directives. Yeah, I think that kind of segues into a little bit of what I was thinking in a lot of the comments we receive in our response to those comments. Cause I don't like the narrative cause I know the legislature did this in a sense to us where they didn't wanna handle hard questions and they kicked it to us. And now there's a lot of questions that people have and we're like, oh, we can't do that. That's squarely in the legislature's purview and not our purview. And I don't like that kind of narrative where we wanna kick the proverbial can down the road when we feel like we don't have the power to do something up. I will say that, you know, this issue is obviously something that means a lot to folks. As Jeffrey pointed out, we've heard about it a lot. I think there's some opportunity for us to do some things within our purview, not without having to go strictly to the legislature to help, especially small cultivators when it comes to the thousand square foot canopy. And I think folks will see us try and be bold and push, you know, in certain directions, you know, over the course of the next couple of weeks to months, but point well taken, Chair Pepper, I think as it comes to specific asks, you know, it's kind of that, to me, it's like a lot of the legislature, we haven't even seen this program play out in real time yet. And a lot of them are reserved and don't want, they wanna see it play out in real time before they start making too many little fundamental changes to a program. And then that's something that we're obviously trying to work through. And there's still a lot of fear about what this whole plant is with the other half of the legislature. So, you know, picking and choosing our battles in this phase one approach, as you've alluded to a couple of times, I think it's important that being said, we wanna make sure folks that are entering the market can do so successfully, financially, you know, and otherwise. So it's a balancing act. And I think if I'm trying to bring a full circle, just, you know, there's stuff that we can do. I think that there is some things that folks will see us try and do. And there's stuff that we're gonna need a lot of help to do. And I think that's along the same line that you just said. I wonder, Chair Pepper, if we can, you know, consider this conversation part of effectively implementing, which is the third, it was safely, equitably and effectively. You know, if folks are telling us that it's unlikely that people will come from the legacy market into the regulated market, which is another charge. I mean, that was another goal that the legislature set up for us with canopy, the canopy definition, the way it is, I wonder if the argument is there with effectively and moving folks from the legacy market into the regulated market. But that's not a fully formed thought. Yeah. I think related to that, I think my biggest challenge and hurdle in my head is we can do stuff around small cultivators, but how does that dynamic change when we get to the bigger tiers that we're gonna be offering folks? Because the bigger we get, the less likely they're operating at that scale in the legacy market. And then we don't have some of the same, you know, like 904A and 164, where we have a lot of these tools to help small cultivators. So if we start changing, I don't know, I don't have a fully fledged out thought. I guess it's just more of my concerns when it comes to certain ways we should go about doing certain things. Yeah. And on that point, Kyle, I've certainly heard the reverse of this argument, which is, hey, listen, I'm currently growing 20 plants in my garage or my guest room. I don't wanna be subject to all these regulations. I just wanna continue doing what I'm doing and sell to a retailer or a product manufacturer or a wholesaler. I wanna get my product tested. I would prefer having a smaller license type that doesn't have so many regulations. So it's kind of, you know, we do hear both sides of this, but it does point me to what Doug mentioned, which I actually had not thought of, but of course I've only thought about it in the small cultivator context, which is that we really actually probably should be doing something to really say that the timeline that the legislature laid out for us in Act 164 said that we gotta start licensing small cultivators on May 1st. And then it kicked out all the rest of the cultivation tiers to a later date in the summer. However, if we don't allow larger outdoor cultivators to put their seeds in the ground in May, then they lose an entire season. I mean, so honestly, I think that actually might be a very important legislative change that we make, which is we move up our licensing for all outdoor cultivation to as soon as we possibly can next year. Yeah, that makes sense to me. I just, yeah, it was a very well taken point, Doug. Thanks for pointing that out. You know, if seeds aren't in the ground by May, then they're not gonna come to maturity by, you know, harvest time in October. So... And I wanna also just point out when we say seeds, I think it might be better that we use the term genetics, just recognizing that not everybody will be starting from seed, whether it's clones or darts or whatever the case may be. And I know that three of us have had conversations with folks that are trying to figure this out. And, you know, I think we understand that seeds don't appear out of thin air. So, you know, I think as it relates to licensing and starting an operation, we recognize there's this awkward dance that everybody's gonna do. But we want folks to be successful and bring their genetics that they have worked over the course of the last decade or two in the legacy market and have those present in the legal market. Yep. So why don't we go back to old growth and then Doug? And I think that'll probably wrap us out for the night. Thanks so much. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited that you guys are giving feedback. I was doing a little dance. That was a great point about genetics and specifically seedlings needing to be started. My partner and I have been talking about that and are like, what, how are we gonna do this? Because ideally we actually would start seedlings in February for outdoor. So you could even move it up further to being like actually it's like now. So great point on that. I would really like to hear someone mentioned about what do we do with our growing business and licensing each year? I've been dying to ask that question if you could touch on it. And then I thought of something for seasonal employees if people don't wanna budge on taking them out of being an employee, which shit it might be in the statute now that I'm thinking about it. I don't know, but either way, something like recommending that we revisit it in four years or something like this would be great because then the work culture will have developed in the state by then so that you're not, because right now getting people that are skilled and harvesting or trimming, you kind of, there's a whole culture around it where people pop around from place to place and it's not prepared for being set in place. Okay, that's all, thanks so much. Thank you. Can I say something on that? Sorry. No, go ahead. On the employees, I've thought about this since it came up in our meeting and that we could potentially use FTE instead of employees. So an employee is one person and FTE is, could be a number of employees that make up full-time equivalent. So that's something I think that we can talk about again. Yeah. It's on the list, believe me. It's on my list at least. Doug. Yeah, just to touch basically on what she had said too, but yeah, whenever, as early as I can start, change is not only how much I can yield and stuff, but it also changes the layout. That gives me an opportunity, do I cover my 2,500 square feet with 25 plants or do I have to do 80 because my canopy size is only expected at so much? And then that also would go into as a tier two and above would have to do is fencing. There's no definition of what that fence has to withstand. Does it have to incorporate the entire area or can I isolate groups of plants? Because depending on your growing area, you may live on ledge and on the mountain and it may not be feasible, you may pay $30,000 for fencing. Thanks. If I can respond to that very quickly, I don't think that your canopy needs to be a continuous canopy recognizing the different landscape and geographical features that we live in when it comes to the state of Vermont. And I think when it comes to fencing specifically, we were intentionally broad in our definition of fencing because we didn't want, I think Pepper and I at least have been on the record as saying when it comes, well, I don't know if Pepper's been on the record, I'm not gonna speak for Pepper. To me like folks potentially could be more upset about an ugly fence around a cannabis plant than the cannabis plant itself. That's part of the culture, how I see it in Vermont. And I don't think we want folks to be spending that much money on fencing. It's more about, that being said, there's other reasons why you might need fencing, whether it's insurance, whether it's your specific situation or how you wanna protect your plants. But I think we were intentionally broad with respect to what a fence is defined as because we don't want the fence to be the reason why somebody doesn't do something or also it destroys landscapes in this, or at least that's how I view it in this state. So I don't know, Doug, if that helps you at all, but that's my thought because I kind of helped Shepherd that those security requirements are on outdoor growing into the rules. Well, I see that we're a little past seven. I know that there are some outstanding issues and questions out there, but I do think that this is a productive meeting. Thank you for the comments. We very much need the specificity that this group gave us because right now what we're doing is we kind of, throughout all these ideas, try to put them into five separate documents, our five rules, and now we're at a process where we can pair them down or expand upon them or provide more guidance. And the more that folks that are gonna be impacted by these rules can give us their comments, the more helpful it'll be over the next couple weeks and months to really refine what we've done and really make it workable for you all because that's ultimately the goal is we wanna have kind of the least restrictive environment that meets our legislative demands and our legislative intent and our needs as a state. So please keep paying attention, keep submitting comments. We'll try our best over the next couple of weeks to get guidance out around what we've done and where we intend to go. We're gonna try and work on our relationship with fire safety, work on our relationship with our municipal partners so that those things are at least known to you all, you potential applicants at the outset. So with that, Kyle, Julie, do you have any final concluding comments at this point? This felt like a very productive public comment period. Thank you all and happy new year. Yeah, no, I'll agree. I think even Jeffrey alluded to, it's nice to see policy being talked about the last couple of meetings. I think other issues have taken the forefront of our ideological viewpoints on cannabis generally have taken the forefront of these meetings and it's very, very appreciated and helpful that everybody over the course of the biggest holiday week of the year would join us for just over an hour and provide us feedback and help us get to a place, as Pepper said, that kind of works for everybody who's interested in participating in this marketplace. So thank you and happy holidays, happy new year. Thank you. Yeah, thank you all. Good to see you, Julie and Kyle and with that, I'll adjourn the meeting. See you in January. Thank you. Bye. Bye.