 I'll get started. My name is James Pepper. I'm the chair of the Vermont Cannabis Control Board. Today is September 7th, 2022, and I call this meeting to order. So first thing, the staff here has recommended a social equity status denial. So we need to enter into executive session later in this meeting to discuss the specifics of that case. We'll do so after Bryn reviews the applications and then before we actually vote on those recommendations. Just a quick note on inventory tracking. I know there's a lot of questions about how to comply with the board's record keeping and inventory tracking requirements. We have developed specific data points that each licensee will need to track and report back to the board. We're currently entering into a contract. It's taking a little bit longer than expected to help integrate this reporting and data entry aspect of this work into our licensing portal. So you have kind of a one stop shop to report your inventory as well as kind of do your renewals or start an application. In the meantime, each licensee will be required to report this information to the CCB electronically through a form that will be available on our website. The agency of digital services, which is the state kind of IT department has built these forms for us. They needed some tweaking and so they're not ready for today. But at our meeting next week, our compliance team is going to conduct a tutorial on how to collect inventory records for each license type and how to report this information to the board using these online forms. Quick licensing update. We don't have a long list up for approval today, but we are getting very close on a few retail applications as well as the integrated license applications. Just a reminder that our compliance team will need to do a site visit for every operation prior to us issuing a license. So if you have a pending application and you haven't been visited by one of our inspectors yet, we will be in touch to set that up. Other than that, I don't think I have anything. So why don't we go ahead and approve the minutes from our last meeting, which was on August 31st. You guys had a chance to look at those? Yes. Yep. All right. Is there a motion to approve them? No move. Seconded. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. I think I'll turn things over to you to review the kind of applications that are up for today. Okay. So here is your register for this week. And as usual, we are starting the Canvas program. You can see that staff received 23 new patient applications and 31 renewal applications and wound up issuing 51 patient cards in the last seven days. New or renewal caregiver applications are about five and staff approved three caregiver applications and issued for employee dispensary employee cards. And our numbers, we are still about four days outside of our 30 day threshold. Staff are processing applications received on or after August 3rd. So still working to get clients with statute there. I'll move on to the license application numbers, which are current as of today. Let's scroll down a little bit so you can see the bottom here, the totals. One thing that's worth noting is that this is the first board meeting that we have more applications that are in the approved or category than we have still in process. So we have about 215 that have been issued or approved before the applications that are up for approval this week. And we have about 192 in the queue. So we have more that we have processed than we then are waiting to be processed. So that's the first. So again, as the chair mentioned, we have just five up for review this week. And you can see we have a number of retailers that are under review about four that are like in review process or resubmitted. And for manufacturers, we have one that is in resubmitted status, which is getting quite close to the Tier 3 manufacturer and about six Tier 2 manufacturers that are in the review process. So I'll scroll down to the staff recommendations for a license. This is our list this week. So we have just five up for your review. We've got weed connections applying for an indoor Tier 1, cremation solutions applying for an outdoor Tier 1, horticultural professionals applying for a mixed Tier 2. Demeters DG is applying for a Tier 3 indoor and first branch cannabis applying for a mixed Tier 2. And then we have our short list of license amendments here to show where we are with the amendment process, five total in the process of amending their applications. And then lastly, we have our social equity numbers here. And as the chair mentioned, we have one social equity applicant who is up for review today. Staff is recommending a denial for submission 755, denial of social equity status as they don't meet the criteria for social equity business applicants. And we can discuss that in executive session. Um, Brinayad, a quick question for you. When I was looking when I saw the register just then, it looked like there was one integrated license. I think historically we've had two in that category is that is it just one, it had one in kind of process and one in dismiss. Okay, those look like that's an error in the spreadsheet. So we will get that fixed. All right. Other than that, I think this looks great and thanks to all the kind of hard work to getting us, you know, in more approved than pending. Yeah, that is very exciting. Well, I think we should do an executive session to discuss the kind of rationale behind the denial recommendation. I think Susanna is going to join us for that as well. Yes. Is there a motion to do that? I move that the CCB go into executive session to consider confidential attorney, client communications made for the purpose of providing professional legal services to the body. And that executive session is required because premature general public knowledge regarding such communications would clearly place the board at substantial disadvantage. I further move that the board invites Susanna Davis and Jake Green from the Department of Racial Equity into executive session. I'll start again. All in favor? Hi. So just as a time check, it's 1.35. We ended just 10 minutes earlier than expected. But so we are out of executive session now. We were joined by Susanna Davis and Jake Green from the Office of Racial Equity. And we reviewed the kind of facts behind a staff recommendation to deny social equity status. And I think we are now ready to vote on all staff recommendations. So is there a motion for that? I move that the board accept each of the recommendations as presented to us by staff in this meeting. I second. Any discussion before we vote? Nope. Not this week. All right. Well, all in favor? Hi. Hi. Great. All right. Why don't we go ahead and move to public comment? We'll start with the people that joined via the link, via video. If you have a public comment, please raise your virtual hands. We'll try our best to call on you in the order that you raise your hands. And then we'll move to folks that joined via the phone. Davis first. I think a lot of folks might not be back yet. The kind of general comment about the exact sessions where you look at social equity applicants, they would be a helpful thing for the market. If there were like some general criteria that are frequently being looked at in these executive session denials that you could share that out. I have some clients who I think are borderline cases, actually kind of poor cases for social equity that I've been discouraging from aggressively applying because I just don't think they fit. But it would be nice to kind of know why folks are getting rejected in a way that doesn't divulge any kind of private information that cannot be shared. So please consider that. Thank you. Thanks, Dave. Michael. Good afternoon, everyone. Michael Denalt here. Charles River Insurance. We're helping out, providing insurance solutions for the new industry here. I have come on once before talking about the residential exposure for insurance and how it was a very big conflict because there were no options available. I did want to let the board know that we do have a solution finally that we've been working on since April as soon as the new licenses were announced. This is something where it is an explicit inclusion for a residential exposure. So I did want to let the board know that I am available to send that over to you for reference, to show you the language from a legal standpoint, how that does incorporate into the licensing process. And for anybody else on the call, again, Michael Denalt at Charles River Insurance, happy to help out with the home businesses. Thank you. Great. Thanks, Michael. I'll be in touch and maybe we can kind of get this information out to the Vermont industry. Tito. Hi, everybody. So I love seeing all these approved licenses, but I still cringe every time I see the town names disclosed. I just don't understand why. I know you guys have been saying for transparency. Disclosing the county definitely still adds to transparency, but at least it makes it a little bit harder for pro-thieves to find us. That's all. Thank you. Hope you're all having a great day. Yep. Thanks, Tito. I see it's Per, P-E-R. Hello. Hey. Yeah, hi. This is Per. Per Arneberg with Dolan, LTD. How you doing? Doing fine. Thanks. So just a few questions that we have regarding we were applying for a set of licenses. We've already received manufacturing cultivation and applying for retail and some questions regarding the product approval process and packaging and labeling. So it's quite a few questions. I'll just try and keep it as short as possible. We understand that individual products are going to have to be approved by the CCB prior to being sold in the retail space. Is there information out on that yet? We've been looking and we haven't seemed to find any. We also know that there's this fee for each individual product that's going to be approved by the CCB to be sold. We believe it's $50. What is that process and is that portal open yet? And how do we submit for individual products? And also around that the language from what we've seen seems to be a little bit vague on is this for let's take the category of flower for each individual strain for flower in general? Like IE, if you have five types of flower, is it $50 per individual strain? And then for approval, are we talking about approval on a per gram, per each individual SKU or an overall category of product? Then in terms of packaging, a little bit regarding your pre-approval of certain packaging or your waivers, some of the items there were curious about. So like the baggie, the paper baggie, for example, because of your waiver, is that something that can be utilized the same packaging from the same brand in different sizes? Because to me, from our understanding, it looks like it's that one specific size. And same thing, you've got a, I think it's a plastic cap as well with a waiver. And from what we can see that only really fits with the glass package that it screws onto from that same company and or they have a full recycled plastic vial. So if that brands, that specific plastic has been or recycled plastic has been given a waiver, does that also fit for other products from that same manufacturer, from that same type of product? And with that being said, we've also been trying to go through the packaging. One thing that we see that we're a little bit confused on is the issue of opacity, like opaque packaging. So you can't see what's inside. And considering something like a glass jar, you guys have approved Mason jars or glass jars with screw tops. Does glass or packaging need to be 100% opaque? What's the definition here? Because in that case, we would imagine that any glass jars that are not black would be out of the running from that side of things. And then we're also looking for some clarity on child resistance and tamper evidence, because like with the glass jars, flip top jars from what we've been able to find. And if there are solutions, we'd love to hear them from what we understand the definitions of something like child resistant, those screw top glass jars, we wouldn't think would fit that, but maybe we're wrong or something in that sense. And same thing with some of the products you've given waivers to, like again, that paper baggy. Is that considered child resistant because it can be heat sealed at the top and it has that rip top? Or how does that fulfill the tamper evident and the child resistant packaging? And then on to labeling, and I'm sorry, I know I'm taking up quite a bit of time, but this is important, is there's a lot of information that needs to fit on some of these labels. And we understand from your guidelines that there are different ways to attach them and so on. We're a little bit curious about things like the dropper vials and with the peel back labels, some further guidance on what needs to be on the outside surface versus what can be underneath on the peel back label. And for something like a little concentrate jar that can be extremely small sized, there's nearly no way that we found, at least with the text and size of text requirements that CCB has put forth to fit that. And we understand there's ways to tape on and attach. We'd like a little bit more clarification around that. Can it be the information the label is attached somehow in a baggy when they're being sold or what? Because with some products it just seems like it's almost impossible to fit all of that on. So I know that was a lot of different questions and appreciate your guys' time and hope to hear some answers back on it. We're going to email you as well with some of this stuff. Yeah, that's great. Those are all really good questions and all things that we've been discussing internally and we'll hopefully have some answers for you very soon. We know that this is kind of a critical moment for all of the packaging and labeling. Chris Vickers. Yeah, hi. I'm a tier one cultivator and I am going to be applying for my manufacturing license. And I kind of wish that these two things were rolled together somehow where most people who are cultivating are going to want to do something else with their other products that they have, their lower buds or turning it into other things. And I feel like going through the application process again, another $1,000, another license fee, doesn't really make sense unless you're going to be bringing in other product from other people and processing that. Thought maybe you could try to roll that into tier one and make it part of something where you can take your own product and turn it into whatever you want, joints, materials, hash, without having to reapply and do another license. Just an idea. Thanks. Yeah, thank you. Anyone else who joined via the link, please just raise your virtual hand. If you joined via the phone and would like to make a public comment, hit star six to unmute your phone. Keith? Oh, CCB. I have a question. Will you be requiring all employees to have safe vendor training and a safe vendor training course applied to all employees that apply for retail sales businesses? And my other question is, do all retail sales businesses have to be a separate building and not joining to any other building or any other building that is operating a business within that business already? So they would be a single business in that as is with all the security parameters of two door locks, security cameras, an ID check machines, anything like that. And I'd like to see safe vendor training because I think the CCB should have it as well and all employees and all staff of the CCB should have some type of safe vendor training because going into this blindly, most people are not going to know how to do this. And there's got to be some parameters of education to get people out there when they start working in these retail stores. Yeah, thanks for the comment, Keith. Again, we don't generally answer questions just directly during the public comment period. You know, it would very quickly convert to just a question and answer session, which really isn't the point of a public comment period, but I appreciate the questions. And I know that our education requirements are in our rule. And, you know, you can kind of see some of the I think the answers to your other questions are pretty clear in our rules. But anyway, anyone else for a public comment? Well, thank you all for joining today. Thanks for to the staff for all their hard work this week. And thank you, Julie and Kyle. I'll see you all next week. Thank you. Likewise, and thank you.