 Today is November 5th, it's 1101 and I call this meeting of the board to order. Today we're continuing to discuss and make decisions on some of the finer points of our regulations. Today specifically we're going to be talking about issues, discussing issues about local governance, inspections, compliance and enforcement mechanisms, appeals, and a continued discussion around the priority of licensure. Before we turn to the agenda, I just wanted to give a quick update on the social equity town halls that the board has been working to plan. So just to back up a second, we've made recommendations, the board has made recommendations on the criteria that would qualify an applicant as a social equity applicant. But we really felt that it was important to not get too far ahead of the public as to how we can really ingrain equity into the cannabis industry without the input of the people in the communities that have been actually impacted. So we've been working to develop a few hybrid in-person and remote town hall style meetings around the state. The dates that we're looking at are November 18th, which is a Thursday and that would be an after hours town hall. And then Saturday November 20th. And currently we're looking at Winooski and Bennington as the locations. But we are in the process of reaching out to some stakeholders to really develop the format and the agenda for those town hall meetings. We'll continue to discuss these in our meetings here as well as keep our website up to date with any of the kind of specifics around times, locations, and agendas. Is there anything either Bryn or Julie or Kyle would like to add with respect to the town halls? Only that we're really looking forward to hearing feedback from the public. I think that the social equity committee has done a really good job of framing some ideas and I know that they really want to hear from the community. Do you agree on anything further to add? Yeah. Okay, then I think we should move to the agenda. But first, we should approve the minutes from 10.29. I did make a slight change to the minutes that were posted. Just clarifying that the conversation around transfers is really about transfers from medical licensees, dispensary licensees to their integrated license component. And it was more of a clarification than a substantive change. But with that, I take a motion. Seconded. All in favor? Aye. Okay. The agenda today, we're going to start with Julie to talk about local governance and the priority of licensure for their continued discussion. Am I also going to talk about the ID cards? Yes. Okay. They're framing our meeting with our mission. And then I was looking at local rules for local governance. So the legislation allows us to adopt rules relating to a municipality's issuance of a local license. It also references that local governments have authority to condition the licenses under 24 VSA 414, 4414 and 2291. 4414 talks about zoning primarily and then 2291 talks about some of the other inherent powers for municipalities. So really, this is more of a problem analysis than it is about actually proposing some rules because we spent some time with local governments. This is kind of all of the conversations that I've had over the last several months related to local government getting input. We also had the municipal survey and round table which really produced, you know, the result was local government said we have a lot of rules already. We have a lot of zoning authority already. What we really, really need is clarity on what the cannabis control board will do. We've already proposed, you know, some recommendations that will impact local governments. I guess what I'm, all of these slides are to say I don't think we need any more rules than we actually need, right? So I think we need to recognize as we're making our rules that the local zoning ordinances and bylaws and town plans exist and try to do our best not to conflict with those too much. But the only rule I would propose is that for the first three years, towns are required to track data. The purpose of tracking this data is twofold. One, I think it will give us some market information that we might like to have in the future. Second is when we were discussing the fees, we heard from municipalities that, you know, the fees that we were proposing weren't enough but there wasn't enough information from those towns to decide what that fee actually should be. So if we track some data for the first couple of years, I think at the end of that time we'll have a better sense of what those fees should look like or what the cost actually is to the local government. I mean, this is the rub that we have is that in order to recommend a fee, we also have to justify that fee and what we've failed to hear is the real justification largely because this is a new industry and we've never had to do this before. Anytime you require data tracking, it can be an expensive proposition. If we do go with the legislative transit going with the fee structure where you actually have to keep track of your time for processing, you know, that will get transferred to the cannabis point, so we'll be able to understand that. So we don't need to ask them to track that if that's the way. So we'll have that when we track it. The local efforts for compliance enforcement, I mean, that's essentially what we need if we're going to increase the fee. So I would like that data, I don't know about requiring it. I think if people want to increase their, if they want to propose a justification for an increased fee, then they would have to be supported by it. So we could either require it or we could strongly recommend it. Yeah. I like the strongly recommended route considering some towns are going to feel differently about this and if they want to come to us and say we need an IR fee, we need to see why. Because we haven't, as the chairman alluded to, really seen that administrative burden in real time and understanding what it means. If we were to require it, we would need to make it simple enough for a town that has just some elected board that's also doing their administration. And, you know, I don't know if we can do that. So I went back and forth in my mind. I landed on requiring, but I'm not. We could strongly recommend it as time. I think it's an incentive that if they do want an IR fee, they could need to show us why. Yeah. I'm with the strongly recommended. Okay. So the other things I think we should just discuss, because we're in a public setting and I think it's helpful to discuss these things is what the towns will really need is clear guidance and probably some direct outreach from the board about the rules that we do create at, you know, direct education, whether it's infographics or webinars from us we'll probably need to revisit that municipal input process after implementation to see, you know, how things are going, where the gaps are. And we should probably consider the type of staffing that is needed for that type of dedicated education at least in our school. David, how binding are the FAQs that we release on a town? They're not binding on anybody. They're just informational. Yeah. But, yeah, you could choose to take an FAQ and try to transform it into a sort of a little bit. How binding are they on us? They're not binding on us. Yeah. I mean, it's something we've been asked for repeatedly in every other state has them, so you might as well have them. Are you moving on? Yeah. Okay. So cannabis establishment identification card. So I've included the legislation. So every owner, principal, and employee of the cannabis establishment identification card. Part of that is a background check process that goes with the issuance of that card or the approval or denial of that card. I looked at some past meetings and discussions that we've had that sort of touch on this. Also some other states that are doing this. And, of course, our relevant statute. And I looked at our current medical hopes because they are doing this for medical dispensaries now just to kind of make a comparison. So for owners and principals, this should just be part of the application process. And we should issue those ID cards when we issue the license. For employees, though, because that won't necessarily, employment won't necessarily happen at the time of the licensing, it's a little bit different. So when an employer or a cannabis establishment hires someone, they should submit all of the information that's needed to process the background check and the application at the same time, including the receipt from a fingerprint identification center so that we know that the fingerprint's been taken. And then, you know, I wrote in here that employers should reimburse for the fingerprint collection. Most employers that do this are already doing that sort of reimbursement. This kind of ties into the other question, of course, which is an employer, if you're not getting your employee license ID card tied to a specific employer or establishment, then who's going to reimburse? So if we make recommendations to detach those in the legislature, it does matter. Honestly, I think employers might do that anyway because it's a benefit to them and it's attractive as a benefit for an employee, but they wouldn't necessarily. Yeah, I just see that shout language. I guess if we were able to decouple the employee ID from the cannabis establishment, we could revisit the shout. Right, so I wrote this the way that the legislation is written, knowing that we would have to revisit it if it looks differently. So once the application is submitted and reviewed, the employee or the applicant can get a temporary permit and they can operate at the cannabis establishment with supervision. And the temporary permit will expire when the background check information and the permanent one is issued or when it's denied. I also put in here like a two-month buffer in case it takes a long time for that process to happen. So if or if it's denied, then that piece of paper that someone's walking around with doesn't have no ending on it. So if we deny a license and they have some temporary permit that someone's not walking around with. And then background checks, if they're attached to a license, would be done at the time of application at a renewal. So a card could be denied if the applicant is under the age of 21, if they're untruthful on the application, if the record check produces results and we would follow, and my recommendation is to follow the same process as well. And then also if they have had a card revoked in another state, we would need to look closer at the reason and that's sort of what the next set of bullets really talks about. And then I just listed the types of things that should be on the application. I realized that this means that people will probably have to fill out multiple forms. I think there's no way around that the FBI will require a different format than BCIC and we will need additional information about past employment in order to meet the recommendations that I just made. So it's likely that people will fill out multiple forms for this process. Yeah, it still looks good. And then my next slide was really a discussion point about whether or not we should recommend that the employee card be detached from them. I think that there's some challenges of having them attached to a license and that the question is, can some of work at multiple establishments? Can they work at multiple different types of establishments? I don't know if the assumption was that everyone would have full-time jobs in cannabis establishments. I don't know if that's true. It might be that people have multiple jobs in multiple different establishments. I mean, I like the idea of the flexibility that removing the tie to a specific establishment provides for the worker. To me, I think that's an important piece of this. Otherwise, you get locked into one place and there's a real barrier to you wanting to leave or being able to leave. And it's an added cost to the worker if you do decide to leave. So I like having it not tie into the establishment. I don't know what the discussion was. I mean, maybe that's just how it works on the medical side. So they just imported language from the medical side. But I prefer having the ID follow the employee and not the establishment. I agree with that. We're missing anything there, David? No, you're not missing anything just to be clear. This will be a recommendation for all I dislike here because the statute does attach it right now. I think that makes a lot of sense. So it's a little girl robust industry from a worker perspective. The flexibility of everything. On the establishment side too, the way that the legislation is written right now, if you hire someone in large, for example, and your license is up in April or May, then you have to submit all of that paperwork again. So it is a little bit of a deterrent for hiring at certain times of the year, at times of the year, which might be a problem. Right. So it might be hired on a temporary basis at a harvesting time that might not have that same opportunity the next harvest time. Great. All right. Okay. So prior to your licensure, I really just, I think what I have documented here is where our discussion was really going. So what I've put down is that during sort of the implementation phase we'll follow a process where we batch our applications. One batch would be the first to the 15th day and actually be the 16th to the 30th day. So we look at them in two batches. We would always consider the geographic distribution of cannabis establishments as part of this process and the market means as part of this process. Then within those batches, we would prioritize them in two ways. First, we would have social equity applicants, DEI applicants. That's what we go with the recommendations in the subcommittee. And then all other applicants. Within those, then there would be subsections prioritizing by this list A through E. And I didn't, it didn't sound like we were prioritizing list A through E with any type of weights. I think we sort of moved away from that idea. In my mind, it's the more of these items that you have the further up in the processing. So for example, a social equity applicant that has four of the items in the second section on this slide would be above a social equity applicant that has only two. So you're moving people within the queue within their defined bucket. So that's where I think things get a little bit tenuous from our perspective. And I also don't, what Massachusetts kind of said also is after this initial ally of licenses, that priority, the prioritization is not going to matter much because you're not going to be receiving licenses as quickly. I think if we have badges, then we don't need to move people within the badge. But I think what, where I was going was we have minimum qualifications for A through E. And if you're not meeting those minimum qualifications, then your application is not complete. We send a request for more information on why don't you have a social equity plan that doesn't meet our minimum standards. And so that would give them a, that would kind of pause their place in the queue and they would have a certain amount of time to respond. And if they don't respond within that time frame, then their application is just out. And then once they do respond, they can get back in the queue. Would you do A through E or A through D? Because I think we know that there will be a number of applications that won't be medical dispensaries already. Well, I think D would be one of those, not required, but optional ones. Because we do want to know, if we're going to give any sort of consideration to owning a medical cannabis dispensary outside of Vermont, actually the medical dispensaries inside Vermont already have kind of built-in priorities, then we need to consider good standing criteria for E. But it wouldn't be required of every applicant, of course. But I think A through D would be, I think A through D, we would create minimum standards and then E, we'd have some good standing criteria to consider it. So I know last week we talked about what E specifically means. Did you explore that at all? We talked about it last week. Two, does this insinuate medical dispensaries from other states coming in here and looking to enter our market, or is it tailored more explicitly towards the incident? I mean, the way that... It could go both ways. So I'm just thinking about the intent of the legislature. I think the legislature probably thought we were going to have residency requirements, so this would only apply to Vermont dispensaries. And they wanted to make sure that, you know, because a Vermont dispensary is entitled to certain privileges, that we would have a layer of review to make sure that they're actually in good standing whether we give them those privileges. But I don't know. That's my take on why E was included. So I think it was really focused on the Vermont dispensaries, but it doesn't read that way. Plain reading doesn't exactly... Yeah, that's why I was wondering about intent. I mean, I don't think we should be prioritizing out of state. Dispensary is coming in here generally, you know, looking to enter the queue just like anybody else can. But if you do have a license in another state, I think we would want to know that you're in good standing. We do get at that in other aspects of the licensure. You know, if you have negative enforcement actions against you in another state, that's part of the kind of minimum qualifications. There's something that we would want to look into. I certainly agree there is from a priority perspective. So one of my other thoughts is about C, because it says proposed specific plans to pay employees living wage off of benefits. I feel like that's one of those things that a new business either can or may not be able to do, or may not even be required to do. So if it's a... I mean, maybe there's some automatic, like, this is obviously some of the ridership, so you don't need to. And there's only one person working at it, two people working at it, so you don't have to offer benefits. You know, it says proposed a specific plan. It could be like once we get to X number retail sales, or then we would, you know, include this number of employees in a little wage plan. If you're a sole proprietor, you know, you could say that, you know, I'll pay a little wage any future employees that I are, but I can't afford to pay myself a little wage, et cetera. You know, it's a plan. It's not necessarily, you have to do this at the outset. Yeah, again, I think all of these are written broadly enough to develop guidance about what each one specifically might mean and or entail, and I think your points are very well taken. We can probably develop some kind of guidance or create some policy around what, you know, C actually means, recognizing that everybody is starting at a different point. Likely, some might be well-capitalized, others might not be, but as long as there's a type of plan, you know, that we can see in steps to meet that plan are actually happening in practice, I think that's something that we can work out. And it touches on, you know, if we had some sort of moving in the queue based upon these criteria and, you know, Company A says, I'm gonna pay all my employees a little wage and Company B says, I can't afford to do that and Company A would get moved higher. But really, you know, that's a discretionary point for us and we don't have to consider any kind of financial hardships. It makes things complicated when we start moving things in the queue. That's why I really kind of think having just minimum standards here, no movement in the queue but minimum standards. But if we could batch, though, too, I think, you know. Right. We should do, yes, I agree with doing that. And I think this first part, the social advocacy advocates, the DEI applicants, if we accept that, I don't know what our rotations would be because they're already something we're supposed to do. Okay. Do you have enough direction there, Bryn? For now? I think so. Okay. This is a continued discussion, of course. Yeah. I'm sure this becomes very relevant to a lot of people. I think what we can do, like, I said this when I started proposing some environmental resiliency or sustainability criteria early on is the initial wave is where this is gonna matter, but how does it matter after that? I think as our program hopefully starts to mature, we can develop certain supplemental awards or programs that could look to a lot of what these A through D specifically mean and that might be marketing material or you can inform your customer base that, hey, I have done above and beyond what has been asked of me, so on and so forth. Other states, other programs have these kind of awards at the end of every year for businesses that achieve certain standards within what a program entails. In Massachusetts also has penalties, enforcement actions that they can take if you promise something in your application and you're not living up to it. You haven't made progress towards that promise on the diversity. So I think we can talk about that also in kind of the enforcement section. Is that it? That's it. Wow, all right. We're ahead of schedule. Kyle, do you want to... Sure, go ahead. We're gonna be even more ahead of schedule because I have a total of three slides today. Let's try. Yeah. That's to look at cultivation facility inspection standards and license renewal. I think a lot of this will kind of set the stage for some of your presentation. So cultivation facility inspection, what I really was aiming to do here was set a baseline of what both license holders and our enforcement division or designee can reasonably expect to happen as it relates to an inspection. A lot of these are broad. This is pretty taken a lot through conversations with the Agency of Agriculture's hemp program. I think a lot of this still depends on a lot of things that we have in motion right now depending on what our relationship potentially with the Agency of Agriculture is gonna look like through an MOU or something similar to that. What kind of resources are gonna be necessary at the pre-app phase when we understand how many cultivators intend to actually enter this market. There's a lot of things that are gonna need to be, I think, backbuilt and determined how, especially my first bullet here, which may or may not be random. We've heard from the hemp team at the Agency of Agriculture that they try and get to about one in six hemp cultivation facilities each year. And that's pretty much resource-based. They have one hemp inspector. There's a lot of cross-train inspectors through Water Quality and some of their other inspection divisions. But from a resource perspective, it's hard to get every single site visited each calendar year. So I think, depending on a couple things, I'd like to see more than that figure represented here when it comes to actual inspection to make sure we understand exactly what's happening, but there's just so much that we still need to figure out to kind of get to an understanding of if 100% of cultivation facilities can be looked at and kind of combed through each calendar year, or we're gonna hit a ballpark range somewhere a little short of that 100%. So the rest of this is pretty standard as it relates to what to expect when any state agency might be coming to your place of business to look at what's going on, inspect a cannabis product or cannabis-infused product during processing or storage inspections. It can include sampling, taking photographs, video, talking to registrants or witnesses, and inspecting records, especially if this isn't random, but somebody has called us or a designee and said, hey, I think that there might be a problem or this person might be doing something outside the scope of their license, so on and so forth. Inspection may also include inspecting equipment and or vehicles used for growing, processing transporting cannabis, cannabis products and or cannabis-infused products. We've talked a lot about transportation security and what that looks like. I think it's important that as we think about cultivation facility inspection, recognizing those times throughout the life cycle of this crop and how it's moving between cultivation and other parts of the supply chain. I included some language about using a cannabis crop samples to connect genetic testing and research. Our male, the Vermont Ag and Environmental Lab has that capability to an extent, and as we look together how Vermont genetics start to take off once we kind of get a couple of years under our belt, I think it'll be important for us to understand what works well given our climate zone and so forth. What's working outdoor, what's working indoor, trying to make sure that we're continuing to do adequate research to the extent that we're able to. I think this is a big part of the state kind of being able to do that instead of relying strictly on private partners to do that for us. Any questions? Again, this is a baseline that I hope we can work out with the enforcement team at Ag and the inspection team at Ag. That's a direction that we end up going in. I have a little bit of similar kind of what an inspection may or may not include on my slides. Again, I put what it may or may not require to be defined through policy rather than rulemaking because I think, again, depending on how many, if it's a checklist that somebody's going through from an inspection, an inspector might be able to get to multiple sites per day, but if it's more involved in that, it's taking pictures, it's writing reports, it's doing, you know, and in each case could be very different, right? You might have a random inspection where somebody is getting all their marks, you might have some that need to be improved upon a little bit from their cultivation practices or the record keeping, so on and so forth. So it's hard. I think we're just going to need to be flexible there, recognizing that we're going to have a scattershot of folks that are going to, if somebody does show up randomly at your door how prepared they are for that day and for that inspection. Collecting samples and so forth, does that include samples of the advertising that we've approved to ensure that it's compliant? I haven't thought about that explicitly because I was thinking more in terms of the cultivation of things more so than the retail, but if they are, and I mean this could change depending on how our program looks if there are direct sales or somebody is pursuing a retail license to put near their cultivation site, you know, I think that's something that we can, if it's present, then that could certainly be sampled. I was thinking more in terms of the crop itself in relation to this slide, but that makes sense depending on how somebody is promoting their product, if they are recognizing that they're not knowing what their business relationship with other parts of the supply chain really looks like. But I would be open to including that just to give them the ability to do so. For cultivation probably be more about the packaging. Yeah. Okay, renewal, again, this is pretty basic. Some of this language is written in statute. I'm proposing that we'll send a notice for renewal 120 days prior to the expiration of a license, so about four months before your license. Is that in statute renewal applications that can be submitted up to 90 days prior to the expiration of the license? Some other states in this sub-bullet may apply for renewal not less than 30 days prior to the license's expiration date, and that kind of just provides us time to administratively look at your renewal application so that you're not submitting at 11.59 p.m. before your license does expire, and then we need the time to actually fundamentally make sure that you can continue on with your license there. I did put some kind of backstops in there that if somebody doesn't get their license within 30 days to us, I've written an explanation detailing circumstances surrounding the entirely filing, or if this happens and we just can't get you an answer before your license does expire because I would expect that, in addition to the bottleneck that happens that we've been talking about through priority stuff, if everybody's getting their license around the same time, they're all going to expire around the same time, and we're not going to have the ability to really stagger out on how we're doing this throughout the calendar year. There's going to be one time of the year where this is a bulk of what we're doing administratively, and if we can't get you that license, then allowing it to continue administratively until you either hear back from us one way or another. Any questions? I assume that we can automate a lot of these notices as well. I hope so. We have a licensing portal, presumably most people can get an email without their license expiration. I know I only has a tendency there coming from the ag relatives. Some folks prefer a paper notice. I chose to not make that decision right now. We can work out, depending on what software we use, if we need to send it to your email that's on file and a paper notice, how we want to move in that direction, I think we can develop over the... Once we kind of see what our software is capable of, once we kind of get there, we don't know yet. I know people are very fond of a tangible notice when it comes to a lot of farmers that we likely will be working with. This looks good. This is just some stuff I would like to see included in your renewal. It's past Halloween and we still got ghosts. So just stuff that should be included in your application renewal at the time that you submit, which is the requisite licensing fee. We have talked about benchmark data for efficiency and water standards, and I propose that. Again, I want to make sure that data we're asking folks to collect is actually used. I think this can help us understand your impact to your environment and also understand that this market's impact to climate goals that the state is currently trying to achieve. Applicator reports is part of our cultivation plan. I talked about this a couple of meetings ago. In that plan, if I recall correctly, we're hopefully going to ask you what you plan to use from a pesticide point of side, herbicide perspective as part of your operation. You might not end up doing everything that you think you're going to do before you put plants in the ground, but that report from your last harvest or that last calendar year, what have you actually put in as part of your products? I think it's important that we know that and we can understand what's necessary to be a part of our market versus what are you using to kind of foster more growth? All of the seed-to-sale tracking programs that I'm aware of allow cultivators to enter that in as they're doing it. Great, then it shouldn't be that hard for us to get there to us. Changes to adjustments to an outdoor cultivation site, if any, through diagram and GIS coordinate information, and I thought this was necessary from a couple certain perspectives when it comes to my environmental and agricultural background. Let's say you have a 2,500-square-foot cultivation site because it's harder to crop-rotate because you're growing strictly cannabis. It might be appropriate for you to move that cultivation site within a designated part of the land that you're growing on. I mean, there's other tax implications that we're working through, or I'm in communication with the tax department on what this would look like, how much land you can kind of take out of current use, but you might want to just move it a couple hundred feet to the left or to the right just to kind of recognize that if you keep depleting soil in a similar way over multiple cultivation harvests, your soil is going to become less palpable when it comes to growing a high-quality product. So if that applies to you and you plan on doing some tweaks to your operation from where it's specifically located, we need to know that. Even if it's plain to the eye, that GIS coordinate will change specifically. I think you're going to recover some of my last remaining points in here, but I just thought it was necessary to talk about disclosure of any relevant changes to direct and or direct financial interest. We need to know if something's happening or you're planning on expanding your financial portfolio. In good standing with CCB enforcement or Designee and other applicable state agencies where good standing is defined, and I know at the Agency of Agriculture, it's defined as no final order signed by a Secretary of Jurisdiction or no court order signed by a judge and that kind of covers your administrative, civil and criminal perspective. I think you're going to talk more about good standing, but I think the 30,000-foot view is most people know if they're not in good standing for one reason or another. You can't seek grand opportunities if you're not in good standing with the water quality division, or a farm, so on and so forth. Over that department, but that's something that we're going to need to coordinate. Folks will know, but this even gets back to our tax discussion. If you have a plan to become tax compliant and you haven't followed up on any of that, that's something that we're going to need to know and define that later date to understand what good standing means and what effort to have actually taken to correct a wrong. This does mean that somebody could be working through the process and not receive the final order and still get their license renewed, though, and that's typically how things do function at the state level. And then what happens if we renew the license and then they still don't become compliant? Does that have to be revoked? Is that what you're going to talk about? I think that was a good clean transition into what you're going to be talking about. Again, I only have three sides. I drew the lucky straw. I'm just going to take that thing off my wall. I hope it doesn't come crashing. I think that's as far as it'll go. I can control it from my computer. All right. I'm going to leave it like that because I have some notes up over here. All right. So we're just going to start with a continued discussion from last week about the integrated specific operational requirements, specifically around whether we're going to require separate inventories, and if not, how we're going to handle transfers between the two. And then on the enforcement end of things, the criteria that we might use to deny an initial application, what we might do to either suspend, revoke, impose a fine or deny a renewal application in the process there, and then the appellate process. So starting. So again, this is kind of that language at the top. It's from Act 164. And it's the provision that allows the transfer between medical and the integrated license. And, you know, I think again, just as a way of kind of level setting, I think this provision was included to ensure that we don't see a supply shortage when these first retail sales begin and there's no other cultivators with plants in the ground. Other than the existing medical dispensaries. So I really think that we need to look at this kind of as a temporary provision. It's a bridge policy. But even if we consider it that way, I think we still need to maintain some control over these transfers because the two concerns that I raised last week still exist, which are there might be, if there's a full transfer of the entire medical supply to the adult use, there might be nothing left for the patients that rely on that supply. And then also, you know, we don't want to entrench kind of some inequitable advantage to these three companies that's not allowed with other companies. So I think I can't really see a good reason to have a segregated medical and adult use inventory at the cultivation stage. I think it's an unnecessary and somewhat burdensome thing that actually is a detriment to patients because if you have a segregated medical, you know, they're not going to, the medical patients aren't going to have access to whatever the kind of variety of strains that are being allowed to be grown on the, not allowed to be grown, but will be grown on the adult use size with that larger canopy. So I think that there's actually a reason to not segregate them. So that's just kind of the first point. The second point, you know, we're talking about point of access for medical patients, whether they need to have a separate entrance. You know, I'm fine with requiring a separate entrance. I think what I really want to see though is that if a medical patient shows up and there's a line around the block that they get priority entrance, they get to go right in, they get to pick up their supplies, and that could be either through a reservation process, which they currently have, but I don't think it would be required. But if they want to reserve a spot, the medical dispensaries are required to honor that reservation. We could allow for curbside sales. I mean, that's what's allowed right now. So I think just continuing that process for medical patients, they don't have to stand in line if there is one. And then maintaining inventory records, I think it's from the prior year that put everyone on notice as to what products they need to maintain. It doesn't have to be a full year supply of those products. You know, I think what the dispensaries have suggested is that it's actually better to just kind of keep three-month supply because they can change dramatically from quarter to quarter. And if they keep enough for three months and they see upticks, then they can, you know, they'll know that they need to keep at least that kind of three-month supply, whatever was sold in the prior three months on hand for the medical patients. And then kind of where I landed on the transfer is so we have the largest cultivation tier that's available to all Vermonters. Whatever that largest cultivation tier would apply to the dispensaries. And if they're going to transfer anything above that, as in like if the largest tier is 25,000, we have some equivalent poundage-wise, like 25,000 equals, you know, 100,000 pounds of cannabis. I know that's probably not accurate. But any transfer that would be above that, so above what everyone else is playing at, would require our approval. Is this for the one-time transfer this coming spring? Or you mean transferring at their discretion at any time? They can transfer at their discretion as long as they maintain three-month supply for the medical. And so long as if they're transferring above whatever our largest cultivation tier is, that they get board approval. Is that what's available? Like so, we're holding the 25,000 tier initially and only starting with 15,000. Are you talking about what we've assigned it to or what we're actually... I would say whatever's available to everyone at that time. If we haven't opened the 25,000 and we've only opened the 15, then they're capped at the 15. Do I understand correctly? So the medical and adult use are licensed separately. Right. And right now in the legislation, the caps on what they can cultivate are different. Like we've talked about square footage and the medical side, it's like number of plants. So I think what I'm worried about is how do we keep track of how much is in the adult use market versus the medical market making sure we're meeting demand on both sides if they measure them differently? Well, so on February, all plant counts go away. So like all of them on the medical side. So that allows them to grow in anticipation of sales. But then they're still licensed differently, right? So the medical side would have a medical license, right? And the adult use side would have an integrated license. But we're going to allow them to cultivate the same... They would essentially be cultivating entirely on the medical side. And then transferring a certain percentage of their products to the adult use retail side. So they need to maintain that minimum amount for the medical based upon the last year's inventory and the preceding three months sales that they've actually made. And then anything else they could transfer to the adult use side but they would be capped at whatever the highest tier is available at that time. And then if they need to go above that because there is this supply shortage that they could apply to the board to have it transferred over and above what other people are entitled to. And again, this would be until this provision goes away and we have other cultivators out there and we have other retailers that can meet that supply demand. So from your perspective, when does this provision go away? Well, there's no end date yet. I would say that we have that transfer approval requirement until it does. So as long as this provision is in effect, they're capped at the highest license type. I'm just trying to figure out in my head let's say that they transfer 15,000 square feet of canopy and once they receive their license in April when's the next time they can transfer 15,000 square feet of canopy? If they do that in April then any other transfer would apply to our approval. And they couldn't do it because they need to maintain that medical supply. So they couldn't do the entire inventory that they have. I just didn't want this unlimited transfer to exist beyond the initial kickstart phase even if they were transferring 10,000 square feet of canopy into the retail side things. The transfer is essentially a pressure release valve for us that we get to control above a certain level. I think maybe what we could also do is develop some type of test or legal test for if we are hitting the need to like an emergency bring in a lot more supply what X, Y and Z need to be done and shown by us and by one of these integrated license holders to actually provide that type of supply into the retail market. So some structure behind that last one. I'm just thinking about future boards who might feel differently about this type of transfer but I get how this is going to go away once the provision is no longer but for those emergency situations for future boards what's the test to determine other than their discretion? That this can't be satisfied by other parts of the market and other license holders? Well it's in our discretion but we need to figure out some criteria around that discretion. And the three month piece that doesn't go away that is part of this ongoing plan. That's the ongoing commitment. Getting back to your first point I know I kind of counted the table to kind of want to understand the physical separation of the two but last Friday and after talking with some folks understanding the software capabilities a little bit more and the recognition of the medical side of this needs to be treated from a cultivation perspective equally if not paid more attention to than the adult side of uncomfortable with them not segregating at their cultivation. So how will we know when you're saying that they'll cultivate pretty much entirely on the medical side and then transfer for other parts of their license? Yeah so like those plan counts disappear I think what February? And then they can start growing in anticipation of a license that they're going to receive in April so that there's an adequate supply when retail hits but I think what Pepper is saying is they need to still have a plan to maintain the continuity of the medical program when that does hit. I guess that I just don't under if they're always cultivating on the medical side how will we ever know how much could go into because they can anything about the largest cultivation tier would require board approval but anything below that would not. So we would have to just kind of make a determination is that what the equivalent poundage of like weights of kind of harvested cannabis would be equivalent to the largest cultivation tier we'd have to just track any movement and then anything that gets above that weight would require our approval. Those plan counts go away but we're going to be working on the medical regulations next year let's say once we actually inherit the program and so I think we need to figure out that end of things so they aren't growing XYZ amount in the medical side hoping that they could potentially transfer it at some point in time. But I think what you're both saying is if it's above a certain amount it requires our approval but below that does not. So how would we ever really know what's in cultivation for the adult use market if we're... We'll have some sort of understanding of every licensees regardless of whether they're integrated medical or not what they're growing whether it's some form of seed to sail tracking so we'll know what the entire canopy and we'll be inspecting as well. So we'll know what the entire medical canopy is and all we're saying here is you play by the same rules as everyone else and if there is some pressing need because of supply shortages the board is willing to consider a transfer over and above what other people are allowed to cultivate. But they wouldn't understand your last bullet. I don't know if I've asked this like eight different ways at this point. So they could potentially transfer up to 15,000 square feet of canopy or the translatable poundage, whatever and I don't know that off the top of my head. Initially for startup but any transfers after that would have to be approved by us. So if they're hitting their cap, which would be the same cap that would apply to any other cultivator in their initial transfer, then yes, any transfer beyond that would require our approval. We want to keep in mind that they can actually transfer their entire supply because they need to maintain three months supply from medical folks. They did it in the first three months they did all but 10% of their supply went over to the adult wreck and then they did another 10% of their supply the next month and any transfer beyond that would have to be approved. So they could transfer like 10,000 square feet of canopy initially and then another 5,000 in a couple months without our approval but if they hit over 15,000 in aggregate they need to get arms. Right, which would be consistent with any other licensee. I'm trying to hold them to the same standard that we would hold any other person with an approved 15,000 square foot license. Well except that no other licensee can grow and transfer. Right, so it's not really the same standard. Well this is a temporary provision that's designed to meet the initial demand when no other license cultivator has any supply because they put their seeds in the ground on April 1st or May 1st and so no one has a legal can't like a legal plant to sell. Only these people do. I understand that. Any further discussion on this? This is where I blend it. We can continue the discussion after public comment. This is kind of where I think it strikes the balance between recognizing what the purpose of this provision is but also putting some guard rooms. Yeah, I think it makes sense to have them be able to transfer up to our highest tier in anticipation of the market but anything after that we need to know and we need to say yes or no. But I think that's what you have written here. I just wanted to make sure I understood while provision is in effect meant in relation to how you are approaching this. I think we're on the same page. It's tough because we're talking about canopy but then the transfer is going to be of, you know, is it finished product that they're trying it's not? We'd have to figure that out. What it would be would be hold people to the same standard, hold licenses to the same standard of whatever we have in the non-integrated license because they think that's my question, right? Because you could cultivate 15,000 square feet of canopy and they could be almost grown plants then you could transfer them to your integrated license and then start over and they would have effectively in one year potentially get 30,000 square feet of canopy, right? Unless we said that you can only transfer at the point at which this product is then going to go to processing and I think we can get prescriptive on that. Yeah, I think that's what I was worried about. I do mention the cultivation stage so when it's moving out of cultivation into product manufacturing I feel like that's where they kind of transfer what happened. You can't just like propagate and then transfer it. All right. So moving on to the enforcement side of things I'm starting with just how the criteria we might use to deny an initial application which I think might be different than what we would use to deny a renewal. So essentially what I have here is New Jersey, Massachusetts, Colorado they all have pretty much the same standard for denial of an initial application it's very kind of black and white and non-discretionary. I know how we use criminal history records and things like that is discretionary but essentially if you fail that whatever threshold we have on criminal history disqualifiers then your application is denied. If you can't meet the ownership requirements and that's the kind of one license per entity including the finance years those requirements if you've made false misleading statements or if you've omitted a material fact if you've demonstrated a danger to public health safety or general welfare and that really includes a history of distributing to minors involvement with organized crime diverting cannabis to other states and then engaging in trafficking of controlled substances or using firearms in your cannabis business and then so that's kind of the main criteria I added the one at the bottom which is has not met the minimum standards of that kind of priority of licensure conversation we just had whatever minimum standards we created for those 903 criteria so to me this is kind of like there's not a lot of discretion which really makes things easier for us when it comes to when people object or kind of appeal our decision on a denial of an application you know these are very objective criteria they're kind of on off switches you either meet them or you don't so I think it's pretty straightforward so suspension, revocation denial of a renewal these are kind of a little bit more complicated issues these are the statutory provisions that exist in from Act 164 that give us the authority to suspend revoke or impose other enforcement actions you know we just had the general authority to do it that we can require the commissioner of taxes to revoke a license, a tax license we can local commissions you mentioned this earlier can revoke or suspend a license for violations of the kind of local ordinances and then the board may assess civil penalties to people that are dispensing to under 21 so just wanted to just put up the statutory authority so Massachusetts this is kind of their permissive authority to enforce you know they require all licensees to be in compliance with their regulations and you know the submission of a license is you kind of agreeing or consenting to the following types of inspections and Kyle touched on a lot of these already but announced or unannounced inspections investigations related to complaints financial audits the secret shopper program I think that's really just like making sure people are checking IDs and not distributing to people under 21 years old and then just kind of a catch all provision and then the things that there are the board of the commission in Massachusetts is allowed to do or kind of immediate access to a facility you know they can demand records they can inspect you know demand kind of you know all the things that you need to do an audit and an inspection these are the types of things that trigger enforcement actions in Massachusetts and I would suggest that we adopt this I've modified it basically a little bit just to use the language in our in our statutes but any violation of laws including you know tax non-compliance and dispensing to youth and again this wouldn't necessarily trigger a suspension revocation or denial but it would trigger some sort of enforcement action that could include suspension revocation or denial any action implicating risk to public safety health or welfare false or misleading information to the board failure to cooperate in an investigation or to submit a corrective action plan or to pay fines I'll talk about the corrective action plans a little bit later changed ownership or assigned its license to another without the approval of the board failed to comply with the control limitations that would be the kind of one license per entity rule just the lack of responsible operation just sanitary concerns non-compliance with the diversity plans that's specific to Massachusetts you can see you can have enforcement actions if people promise you know the sky in their application but sales to minors and then just kind of other incompetent or negligent operations substandard level of compliance with statutory regulatory requirements in another jurisdiction so if you have enforcement actions against you in another state where you're operating that could lead to a potential enforcement action here in Vermont just any conduct or practices that have been deemed detrimental to the safety health and welfare of the public you could see how someone might be in the midst of some enforcement action for water quality standards or something and we might want to potentially suspend a license because of that activity but it hasn't led to a final order yet and then just any other ground that serves the purposes of Act 64 or 62 I'd say this is a non-exhaustive list but this is kind of, this is built on Massachusetts I guess the non-exhaustive is covered in any other agreement I have questions on and now that I'm in disagreement I just want to make sure we have the authority so C has attempted to change ownership or assign its license to another entity without prior approval of the board so that kind of as written kind of makes it sound like we help decide if somebody's going to sell an out-of-state or change ownership I just want to try to understand how that one's written I think that would really be if they do it without telling if they do it without letting us know I mean I don't think that we I don't know if we have the authority to be like you can't do this but we can, I don't know if they have kind of a way to deal with it any licensee has to meet the Republicans of the board and you guys have to check to ensure that that happens so I don't think that a licensee is the ability to freely transfer without the subsequent ownership group being vetted by this board and being approved for a license I agree with that I just wanted to make sure I understood this and what our role would be if that situation did arise yeah I don't know enough about ownership or beneficiary ownership to really answer that question you know I know some of these companies that we traded companies but I do think that we have the 10% role and I think DFR could help us understand and just to add to be clear they could certainly sell the business the question is whether the new ownership has a license too that's I guess where mine yeah so the business that's their private interest they can do what they want and the subsequent ownership group has to meet the requirements of the board and you determine whether they've done so that makes a lot of sense the way that's phrased so thank you so despite statute you always have to know who is controlling the state of your business yeah no I agree I just didn't think we wanted to insert ourselves into every business decision that's going on at a certain level recognizing that they might still need to come out and do certain things but we're not a market dynamic I don't know what I'm trying to say I understand those two I just wanted to make sure I understood this so here are some examples of enforcement actions for non-compliance that Massachusetts has and they are very clear that this is a non-exhaustive list but these are just thrown it out there as things that I think we also have the authority to do so just holds on products limitation on sales removal prohibition of products quarantine cease and desist orders suspension orders show cause orders so if you're about to take an action you can ask a company to say we think that you violated this law we have evidence suspension of a license revocation denial of renewal or avoiding a license just figured I'd throw that out there it's helpful background so I had a long conversation with Dave Huber at the agency of agriculture I thought it would be important to include some information about the agency of agriculture's enforcement structure because it's one that a lot of our cultivators are used to it's been in place for at least the last six years while he's been there and it's been approved by the attorney general's office it's the same it's roughly identical to it's similar to what ANR uses and so there's a certain amount of kind of consistency that I think we want to have with ANR or agency of ag so I figured I'd just walk through it a little bit so this is the statutory or the rulemaking authority regulatory authority that we have you can really see that it's an education first approach and trying to help people come into compliance as opposed to being punitive it's all about identifying and taking corrective action and working with the alleged violator to deal with the issues that are being brought forward either by a complainer through an investigation so here's kind of the corrective action plan that I kind of talked about a little bit there's you know 10 days after you've received the letter to kind of propose a corrective action plan or correct the violation and then Dave Huber really you know his phone number is plastered all over the website all over all these forms and he will go and work with you to kind of really take corrective action you can see though that there is kind of these graduated sanctions for people that are being negligent repeatedly negligent people that kind of rack up violations or if you're acting intentionally willfully or knowingly if you kind of have a kind of specific intent to violate that there's ratcheted up enforcement capabilities so this goes beyond just kind of the education first it's kind of like people who have demonstrated inability to kind of take corrective action so what does this look like in practice this again is based on my conversation with Dave so typically there's a complaint received and I apologize if you guys have covered this extensively in the compliance and enforcement subcommittee but so there's a complaint received either from someone who's doing an inspection or they have again Dave's cell phone is plastered all over the agency of agriculture's website his email he's open 24-7 to receiving these complaints they have a very good anonymous online portal that is very kind of easy to use user friendly if you want to submit a complaint that way depending on the severity of the complaint we'll send an investigator within 24-48 hours generally speaking and the investigator will generate a report that either confirms or denies that the violation occurred and it will be reviewed by the chief policy enforcement officer which is Dave and then the actions that they take kind of from an early standpoint depending on you know the nature of the complaint is the kind of lowest form of response is a letter of warning this is sent through certified mail it includes a statement of the facts there's no response that's required and there's no follow-up investigation but it does become part of your license permanent record the next level up is a corrective action letter and this does require a response within 10 days of receipt and sent through certified mail you need to kind of admit to the action and then provide or the violation provide evidence of a corrective action and you can also if it's a more kind of long-term corrective action that's needed you can kind of just present a reasonable plan to actually correct it and Dave can kind of help people through what's a reasonable plan and what's not and then these always require a follow-up inspection and a case closure letter so you know people can submit their plan but then it has to be verified by the agency the next level up is kind of a notification of violation this includes an administrative penalty there's a form again it's been approved it's the same one that ANR uses and it's been approved by the agency or the Attorney General it's a very kind of non-discretionary kind of basically allows you to calculate the appropriate fine based upon the severity of the offense but you're allowed to consider aggravating or mitigating circumstances and kind of the financial hardship of the license holder so you can adjust the penalty downwards based upon the financial hardship and again requires in addition to the fine it requires a corrective action plan and follow-up inspections people can appeal those decisions, those notices of violation you know the way that they do things I think is going to be slightly different than how we do things here because our statutes are different but we have different considerations than they do but for them from the date you receive the letter you have 15 days to request an appeal if you request one if you don't request one you can kind of admit to the factual basis of the letter the agency if you do request one the agency will appoint a hearing officer the standard that the hearing officer is reviewing is to see if the action taken by the agency was arbitrary and capricious the judgment if the agency finds, if the hearing officer finds in favor of the agency as in that action was not arbitrary and capricious they still have the ability to adjust the penalty or wave it all together if they think the corrective action plan you know is sufficient and then from the date of that judgment you have 30 days to request an appeal to the superior court and the superior court will I think they're going to just base their review on the record that was created during this process there is also the ability to have settlement prior to the hearing and you know Dave said the vast majority of these like 99% get dealt with in a settlement conference so that's that's the agency of agriculture's process so for our process I would say the initial kind of stages the education first the kind of corrective action letters would hold true for us you know really have an education first approach for kind of non intentional violations you know or non repeated violations I think we would need a kind of different process for more serious threats to public safety so I would say that so certain enforcement actions need to happen immediately like stop sales or you know if there's a serious immediate threat that we need to mitigate to public health safety or the welfare that we could take an immediate kind of an emergency enforcement action but if we don't go that way if we don't need to do that if there's no kind of like ongoing immediate or serious threat to public health then we need to have a process before we actually impose a some kind of suspension or relocation of a license so I think we would do similar to the kind of notice of violation that the agency of ag sends out we would do a notice of action letter it could be called the notice of violation letter to the alleged violator prior to taking in enforcement action that details a lot of the same stuff and it could be the exact same form that ag uses if we wanted to adopt it or adopt it it details the alleged violation it creates the factual basis it would include the kind of investigation report that was signed off on and it would detail the scope of the enforcement action that we're taking and then it would allow it would just notify the licensee of their right to contest the allegations and if required request a hearing and I don't think we need to have a hearing for everything there's certain types of enforcement actions that I don't think actually require us to hold a hearing but they could a minimum in every case contest in writing within 15 days so the licensee response shall specifically identify each issue in fact in dispute and state the position of the licensee as well as include the kind of pertinent facts and evidence that could be adduced at a hearing if required or that they have kind of support for and then failure to respond within the 15 day window constitutes an admission to the factual basis and a waiver or future appellate rights that challenge the enforcement action and then if we get one of these letters requesting or if we get a letter or a written response requesting the enforcement action then we can hold a hearing if required and again certain actions that we take will require a hearing but certain won't and I don't need to kind of detail them here but certain actions do require a hearing and and just we'll have a hearing that will be then we'll kind of follow the kind of hearing officer procedures there'll be a standard arbitrary and capricious usually what the hearing officer is looking at our action and then just the imposition of the enforcement action shall be deemed a final decision of the board which is important for the next stage of the appellate process any questions about this though it's essentially a modified version of what AG does it's more specific to our specific jurisdiction so the appeals this is from Act 164 I just wanted to let everyone see the statutory language and so the reason why we need that kind of initial step to build the record is because this appeal is based upon the record that was created by the board so there's no ability for this appellate officer which is contemplated to actually take evidence additional evidence so we need to have a process to get kind of all the evidence on the record at the board level and so then the appellate officer can so they're not allowed to substitute the kind of how we interpreted the evidence on the questions of fact but if they and so they can affirm just based on the record or they can reverse and remand the matter if the substantial right has been implicated and it's been implicated because of some criteria that's listed out there one through seven and then once again that decision of the appellate officer can be appealed directly to the Supreme Court and I assume that that would just follow the kind of rules of appellate procedure I think it's usually 30 days before the judgment is your appeal window I think there's certain circumstances where it might be 15 I don't know where we fall in on there but and then again the Supreme Court can only use the record that was created at the board process which is why it's pretty essential that we have that process for kind of objecting to these notices of violations and so I guess this is just kind of summarizes where I think that we wind up on the appellate process after we have a final action by the board so again when we have a you know certain things will be considered a final decision of the board certain enforcement actions will be a final decision which triggers the appellate appeals window and then if we receive a hearing request it goes directly to the executive director the executive director has 30 days or sorry in a timely manner the executive director appoints a appellate officer and then they're subject to the criteria on the prior two slides and this slide just summarizes the process that I have laid out so on the appeal side any affirmed decision may be appealed to the Supreme Court under the formal rules of appellate procedure so that's it on the enforcement side of things from a procedural standpoint any questions on any of that or discussion I don't think so that looks good David am I out of line on any of that I mean I really do think that the more that we can kind of rely on processes that have been developed by our partner agencies including the agency of agriculture the less of a shock any of this will be to the current cultivators in the state you know they're already subject to a lot of these I mean this is almost a carbon copy of what AG does it's not just for hemp that's for any other water quality pesticides okay that's the end of my slides for today it's 1226 I say if we're all okay with it maybe we move to public comment and we can have public comment and then have one last consideration of of these slides and we can vote on them so anyone who would like to well why don't we start with people in the room who made the trip do you want to make a public comment okay please I'm going to read my good afternoon 26 minutes so I'll try to speak my name is Jen Daniels and I reside in Colchester and I'm a hemp production company based in St. Alvin's that farms in Iversburg and partners by other farms in Vermont, Michigan and California and I'd like to offer comment deriving from my company's three years of experience with building capacity in the hemp value chain and my 20 years of professional experience in community development and social equity so my basic point is I would like the final regs to have maximum benefit for building an equitable, diverse and resilient value chain for cannabis in Vermont by establishing a framework for grower cooperatives to engage in the adult use program co-ops are an ideal way to secure the interest of growers and small businesses I think Vermont's program is well on its way to becoming a national model for small growers and businesses to thrive particularly given that no more than one license, thank you will be issued to a given company within the same segment of the program nevertheless the cannabis market is flooded with capital that is all too likely to find a way to dominate whatever the regs may provide therefore true co-ops are the best way to ensure that small growers and businesses like my own can compete by establishing a price structure that works for them through the legislation though the legislation may not explicitly provide for co-ops I believe there may be a way to establish such a framework through rulemaking by incorporating co-ops in the wholesale license in fact it probably makes sense to issue wholesale licenses only to co-ops since Vermont's program is happily aimed at promoting diverse and dispersed retail with no retail chains wholesaler businesses will likely struggle to provide wholesaling services in cost effective manners by contrast entrusting wholesaling to co-ops will leverage the interpersonal relationships that exist within Vermont's cannabis community throughout the state wholesale distribution will be more organic, local and farm focused elevating Vermont's craft brand for the 13 million visitors each year many of whom seek out such truly craft Vermont products when they come to recreate and enjoy their second homes as we all know co-ops are an intrinsic part of Vermont's brand in agriculture and then finally and perhaps most importantly limiting wholesaling to co-ops will result in the profits of wholesaling reverting back for the benefit of the co-ops and their members supporting their long-term viability and growth rather than flowing to intermediaries and brokers who have no means and frequently no desire to actually build capacity in the value chain thank you for the opportunity okay so continuing to people who have joined via the link if you could raise your virtual hand if you'd like to make a public comment and I see a hand raised THC analytics laboratories first THC analytics laboratory if you'd like to make a comment please feel free to unmute yourself my name is Irim Plantillas and I just have a comment on your equity program it leaves me feeling unfair unfair because I feel like as it leaves out the systemic Native American communities there's a lot of talk about black communities which yes they have been discriminated but you're leaving out several communities that have been discriminated just as that in the language so that is just my two cents on that and I feel that it's imperative that you guys if you are looking to be equitable that you include these cultures within your equity program thank you next we have Paul Shannon Paul would you like to unmute just then great I'd like to second the proposal for co-ops I believe I've raised the issue before here in the kingdom there isn't an awful lot of money to start up a lot of things but a personal patch in the backyard a lot of people have a lot of land but I'm disturbed by the idea that it would be restricted simply to wholesale the jump in profitability if a co-op operated at dispensary would much better serve the co-operatives and members they'd be able to get a more equitable piece of the pie the way capitalism is set up wholesale is good depending upon how much product you produce the levels of scale when you get into retail keeping it on the shelves would be a lot easier in a co-operative sense not only that but people have their favorites there would be a wide variety of strains that were available especially if there was to be a co-op I'd like to have an idea if there would be any limit on numbers it's wide it would be diverse up here quite frankly there's a whole bunch of 1960 and 70 hippies up here have been growing apart for years and they'd love to be able to get in they don't want to have the upfront investment in order to open a dispensary but if they pulled the cash as a co-operative it would be a whole lot better off and if I understand the integrated license correctly it would not include the ability to have a lab but the co-operative I think is essential to the success of the emerging cannabis business in the kingdom and again putting a wholesale limit on it I just think that it would hurt the co-operatives and members thank you for taking the time to listen to me today have a good day thanks Paul next is Tito Bern Tito hi everybody so first I would just like to build on what we were talking about last week about deli style the deli style way of selling cannabis retail and I just want to point out that we've actually been doing this in the burn gallery now for over a year with our CBD flower and it works really really well from a sustainability perspective and also a cost perspective for small businesses entering this having to prepare all your cannabis in little jars I mean the expense that's going to add is tremendous and then all those jars are just garbage and I'm starting to see that too when I get a jar from this dispensary that dispensary and people are showing me and I have a little collection of jars already building up and it's all just trash when a customer can come back bring their jar maybe get a discount it all feels really nice and it feels right second I wanted to comment on the second door for medicinal patients I definitely do not like that idea that could add tremendous building expenses and in some cases it's just actually impossible so just in an effort to keep everybody involved I think that could be a real barrier thank you all so much good afternoon everyone I'd just like to note that I am definitely in support of detaching individuals identifications to a business myself being a freelancer in numerous other industries my credentials stay with me rather than an employee also in support of co-ops with somebody like myself being able to be a member of a co-op being an employee but be able to branch into fields such as like salt and list separations or any number of boutique or craft areas that aren't necessarily represented outside of some big facility and big company thank you so much for your time thank you hi guys I just wanted to kind of piggy back off what Tito said he makes a really good point in terms of building costs my other thought was that if somebody is renting a commercial property for their retail establishment maybe they don't have the right really to build and add another entrance Jesse Lim brought up last week that if we require that the main entrance be ADA accessible that is a lot easier on patients if people don't want to add a second entrance my other thought is that we're already going to have some form of security for everybody in these establishments of age and if we can also just ensure that that person can kind of differentiate between an adult use patient and a medical patient that's a way to make sure that medical patients are still getting priority in the retail spaces without necessarily having to add a separate doorway if there's just somebody there checking IDs and somebody to talk to to say hey I'm a medical patient as opposed to hey I'm a rec user that's kind of how you can ensure that the medical patients are still getting priority there thanks Amelia Joshua, feel free to unmute thank you guys for allowing me to talk so can you hear me yes we can hear you awesome so I recently sent an email out I'm not sure if you guys have seen it or not however my concern is personally I've been a citizen in Vermont my whole life my personal side has been always a factor for what I'm trying to accomplish with the genetics company and trying to get in there however the main difficult thing that I'm trying to accept is that there's no grants or programs for anybody like myself unless you're a minority is there anything in discussion that I've missed or anything that is coming into play for someone like myself that is trying to make a difference in this but it's financially paycheck to paycheck supporting his family so I feel like getting into it is going to be the most difficult thing for someone like me which there should be probably a lot of people like me that can't legally get into it because of finances without that little help in the beginning I think that's basically all I have for now I do appreciate everything you guys are doing but that's one thing I want to see if there's any talk about or anything potential in your future I thank you so much thank you so I see THC analytics up again if you'd like to submit a comment through our public web portal please do I don't want to just kind of have people comment multiple times during this period we do have one other person that just raised their hands well yeah so it's Ann Gilbert Ann if you'd like to unmute great thank you I'm the director of Central Vermont New Directions Coalition we work on youth substance use prevention in Washington County but I work with the other preventionists around the state one of the things we do is we really partner with Department of Liquor Control in their education series for all employees of you know in retail establishments and I just want to say I think it'd be really important for all employees to really understand the public health and the public safety aspects of the responsibilities of selling cannabis and especially around to minors there's also you know the compliance checks around alcohol and around cannabis in some other states and selling to minors is sometimes a fine or a suspension and I'm not sure what it would be in Vermont but I do think there should be a consequence so that we can really keep it out of the hands of kids if that's you know such a main concern and I'm concerned about the enforcement all around and not only for those licensed establishments but is there enough enforcement capacity in the state for the unlicensed places you know I have a concern about this state of emergency in southern Oregon right now with there's just not enough enforcement for the number of places that are around and you know when it comes to public health and the water supply I just want to make sure that Vermont is looking at all of those components thank you anyone else who joined via the link did anyone join via phone okay well in that case I'll close the public comment period again we do have an ability for folks to comment through our website ccb.vermont.gov and there's just a button there to provide public comments any further discussion about our slides before we vote can we talk about the priority access for the medical when you were talking were you actually talking about a separate entrance or did you mean like there just needs to be some method of priority access the second the latter yeah and I'm in agreement with that we've heard a lot about this I think we all need to require that separate entrance is that some business decision that somebody wants to make then I think that they can make that decision but I don't think we should require it I think special accommodations to to make sure those medical patients are served without a new burden skip the line situation fast pass but yeah it could be a separate entrance if that's what whatever dispensary wants to do and then on the transfers just so we're all in agreement they can transfer up to our highest retail canopy size anything after that needs our approval well I know my slides had a lot of background information too that I think the ones that I have explicit recommendations that I'm asking to adopt are the integrated specific operational requirements slide the denial of initial licensure slide you know the enforcement authority slide that's the one from Massachusetts but it lays out kind of fills out the list that you started so I'm like you know demanding books unannounced inspections etc I think all of those will be part of our program we just need to really understand how many folks are going to be participating and what resources you know we heard concerns about unlicensed and licensed folks but what resources will we have for partnerships to do so yeah the suspension revocation denial renewal criteria that I laid out and then the procedures for enforcement of violations alright and then it would be also to adopt Julie's slides I don't think we had any edits including the recommendations we moved the one rule related to local governments to a strongly recommend instead of require and then I think the employee ID card I can't remember how you had a phrase but I think we were in agreement that it should follow the employee and not the business right but that's a legislative recommendation that's a recommendation and then we're going to continue to discuss priority of licensure and then on Kyle just your three slides adopted so you get an A plus for today you get an A plus for today I'll take so then is there a motion to adopt those recommendations with the with the kind of amendments that we just discussed seconded all in favor alright I don't think there's anything left on the agenda so we will adjourn this meeting