 So my name is James Pepper. I'm the chair of the Vermont Cannabis Control Board. Today is May 23rd, 2022 and I call this meeting to order. Two updates before we turn to the agenda. Licensing as promised we're going to be issuing some more operational licenses today. I think three in all and all our social equity applicants. We have a number of licenses that are very close but are still incomplete for one reason or another. We've been in touch with these applicants and hopefully we'll have these issues dealt with for our next meeting. Last week I talked a little bit about the amount of work that our staff has undertaken to really build the systems that got us to this point and will allow us to pick up the pace even further when we have more staff. But I think it's important to put what we're doing here in Vermont into a little bit broader context. The Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission issued its first license 14 months after the board was initially seated. They issued it to a large 20,000 square foot indoor cultivator that already had a licensed medical dispensary. And then after that they issued roughly six to seven licenses a month. Almost exclusively to large companies that were already licensed medical dispensaries. Meaning that they already had all of their banking and insurance and all the other regulatory requirements worked out ahead of time. New Jersey, they issued their first set of licenses 17 months after their commission was appointed. They did it to 13, their initial alley was 13 licenses but these were all two existing medical dispensaries that were already operating. Both of these commissions also have vastly more resources available to them than we do. Here in Vermont, we were seated on April 19th, 2021, 13 months after that almost to the date we issued our first license and we're about to do three more today. And we'll hopefully have a handful more by the end of the month. And we've pre-qualified over 100 people. So we are on pace with these other states. You could add in Colorado, California, Michigan, Montana, all of them kind of worked at the same pace. And we're doing it by not issuing licenses to existing cannabis businesses but to social equity applicants and small cultivators. So I know people are anxious to get licensed. Please, please don't take out your frustrations on our staff. They didn't write the rules, they didn't write the insurance requirements or banking requirements. There are people that are here working as hard as they can to answer your questions and help you successfully complete your applications. Thankfully, more help is on the way. I know people aren't familiar with the sort of internal bureaucracy of state government but it takes literally weeks to actually create a position after it's been authorized. There's strict rules around how long we have to post those positions and before we can even begin to talk to qualified applicants. And of course, if you wanna have any sort of inclusive hiring practice, you can't rush that process or the interview process. So as we do with everything here, we need to balance the kind of need to move quickly with the need to do this job safely, effectively and equitably. So again, I just urge everyone who's watching to exercise patience with our staff and recognize the stress that they are under. Everyone here is at capacity and everyone is working as fast as they possibly can and no amount of kind of controlling them can really change that. In fact, it probably only slows them down. Waiver requests, this is kind of an issue that's starting to be a common theme. So I'd like to say just a few words about waivers. The board was handed the framework for the adult use market by the legislature. It included seven key priorities, things like promoting social equity, promoting small cultivators, but also things like environmental sustainability and consumer protection. We attempted to draft the least restrictive regulatory environment that adhered to those priorities. And we had 150 public meetings and took extensive public comment throughout that process. I know there are things in our regulations that people wish were not there and that they're things that are difficult to achieve, mostly because of the kind of federal status of cannabis. But everything that we did in our rules is related directly to an underlying statutory requirement that was given to us by the legislature. You know, we know here that banking is inaccessible or unaffordable. We know that insurance premiums are artificially inflated because it's a cannabis business and the policies are very limited. We know that security requirements come at a cost. We know that these are barriers to entry, but they're also the cost of doing business for any operation that's open to the public. They protect you, they protect your neighbors, and they create a safe market. The board has identified a few areas of our regulations where we will entertain waiver requests on a case-by-case basis. However, the key threshold question to any waiver request is what did you do to try to comply with the regulation before you asked for a waiver? If the answer is nothing or you heard that banking was expensive from someone else, that's not enough. We're not gonna consider your waiver request. We need to see that you made a good faith effort at trying to comply with the regulations. The next question that we look at when considering a waiver request is why is this regulation excessive for your specific business? You know, liability insurance covers losses or injuries to third parties, including your neighbors, first responders, our inspectors. If your risk is low, either because the nature of your business or the type of license you're seeking for some other reason, you can let us know that and we can consider a waiver, but without more information about your specific business, we really don't have enough to grant a waiver. And of course, there are things that we're not authorized to waive, things like compliance with building codes and fire safety. I mentioned a few times, fire safety needs to talk to every prospective licensee. If your operation is not within their jurisdiction, they'll issue you a letter to that effect, but we want to see that letter. If you are within their jurisdiction, they will work with you and your business to make sure it's compliant. We can't issue you a license until we know that your business is safe for the general public, including your employees. If you're under fire safety's jurisdiction, you'll need to let us know that you've met their requirements and we'll be checking with them to make sure that you have. This is not meant to be onerous. Landon Wheeler, he was out sick last Friday, but it's my understanding that he's up to date on issuing all of these jurisdictional letters and that he has everyone who's reached out to him moving through their pipeline currently. So if you're thinking about issuing a license, you haven't talked or thinking about seeking a license and you haven't talked to fire safety, you have to talk to Landon Wheeler. It's Landon.wheeler at vermont.gov for his cell phone 802-216-0501. And other than that, we just have to approve the minutes. Julian and Kyle, you had a chance to look at them from 516? Yep. Is there a motion to approve? No. Seconded? All in favor? Aye. Okay, so next on the agenda is review staff recommendations on pre-qualification and license applications. Okay. Okay. So we have a number of pre-qualification applicants before you today, 18. So I will start going through those. You can see that today we've got five cultivators, five manufacturers, one wholesale and seven retail. Pre-qualification applicants, a pre-review. And as is true every week, these applicants have demonstrated compliance with rules 141 and 142, and staff have deemed them to be suitable for pre-qualification. First, a little look at the numbers up here. You can see we've got a total number of pre-qualified applicants. This is up to we've got 105 cultivators, one testing lab, 13 manufacturers, four wholesalers, and 22 retailers. So we have 145 applicants that have been pre-qualified so far. So I'll move into the submission numbers and license types. So we have submission number 214, who is up for retail, submission 215, wholesale, submission 62 for retail, submission 424 for a tier two manufacturer, submission 183 for tier two mixed cultivation, submission 547 up for retail. There's a couple of random yellow highlight marks in this document. They are meaningless. Please ignore them. Submission 384B for a tier two manufacturer, submission 110 for retail, submission 7 for retail, submission 509 for tier one outdoor cultivation, submission 487B for a tier three manufacturer, submission 487C for retail, submission 415 for tier three mixed use cultivation, submission number 90 for retail, submission number 102B for tier one manufacturing, submission number 496 for tier one indoor cultivation, submission number 193 for tier two manufacturing, and lastly submission number 93 for a tier three outdoor cultivation. There are two pre-qualification applicants in this list that do have a presumptively disqualifying offense on their criminal history record. The board, the staff is recommending pre-qualification for these applicants, but I just think we could move into executive session to discuss these two particular applicants. Do you want to do that now? I think we should do that now. We have a motion ready. I move that we go into executive session to consider confidential attorney-client communication 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 has clearly placed the board at substantial disadvantage. There, second. Seconded. All in favor? Aye. Aye. OK. So we're out of executive session. It's 11-26. The board was looking at two cases for pre-qualification where the applicants had presumptively disqualifying offenses, and we were looking at whether or not they overcame those based upon the factors in our rule. And I think we decide we will vote on this as part of the entire package. But I think we decided in executive session that those two cases, the applicants did overcome presumptive disqualification should be eligible for pre-qualification. But we will vote on that in a second. OK. So I'm going to move on now to the full license application. Here is the table with numbers of application status. Let's see, we have 125 outdoor, 47 indoor, small, or tiers 1 and 2 cultivation applications in the pipeline. 15 outdoor and mixed tiers 3 and up. 9 indoor tiers 3 and up. We have two testing labs in the pipeline. One that has been deemed incomplete. That's in the submitted status. We've got two integrated that are in the received status. That goes there, up to 200 applications in the door. So today we have three businesses being recommended for licensure. Those are as follows. And the staff is recommending that each of these businesses be approved for a license based on the staff's deeming left suitable for licensure and the fact that they each of them have demonstrated compliance with rules 1.4 and 1.5. I should note that all three of these also have social equity status. The next part of the register is to approve some for social equity status. And there is an overlap here. So some of these are up for licensure and approval of their social equity status, the same key. We can move to that. Here's our social equity license application numbers. We have 37 in total. So recommendations for social equity status. We have submission number 150, the tier one small indoor cultivator, submission number 233, tier one mixed cultivator. And those of these applicants meet the criteria set forth from the rule as a socially disadvantaged individual is defined in 113. And lastly, we have one recommendation of denial for social equity status. And that's submission number 76, seeking a license for tier one indoor cultivation. And staff are recommending that this applicant have their social equity status be denied because they do not meet the criteria for socially disadvantaged individual. This person does not meet any of the criteria set forth in rule 113. So how would you like us to vote on these? Is there a sequence that we should do? Or should we just accept all staff recommendations? I think that you can accept all staff recommendations. That's one package if you'd like. If you'd like to have any discussion on any of these pieces, I think it's fine to vote as in individual sections. If you want to just vote on the pre-qualification applicant, that's fine. If you'd like to have more discussion of any of the portions of the staff recommendations, I think it's OK to vote on all of them as a package. To me, we should do the social equity status separately, especially as long as we deny it. And we could, I think, do the pre-qual and old license. I have one question about the denial. Just for the benefit of the public, what happens with that application now? So this application is going to continue to be reviewed in the order it was received. I do believe it's an applicant that is in incomplete status. They've had an incomplete letter sent out. So we will continue to review that application and work on it in order. It will not be put to the back of the line. Thank you. So is there a motion to approve to accept the staff recommendations with respect to the social equity status? Yes. I move that the board accept each of the recommendations of social equity status as presented by staff and the speed. Do we need to do a separate? And that phrasing covers yes, because the recommendation was two acceptances and a denial. So that covers it. You can specify more, you could say it more specifically, but what you said recovers what was presented. I'll second your motion. OK. Any conversation at all about these? OK. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Great. Now I think we should move to our, I think we can do both the pre-qual and the full applications. Is there a motion to approve the staff recommendations with respect to pre-qualifications and licenses and operating licenses? I move that the board accept each of the recommendations for pre-qualification, including those that were discussed in executive session and licensing approval as presented by staff in this meeting. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. OK. I think all we have left is public comment. So we'll handle it the same way we always do. If you have a public comment and you join via the link, the video link, please raise your virtual hands. And we will call on you in the order that you raise your hands. And then after we get through those, we'll move to people that joined via the phone. So if you have a public comment, please feel free to raise your hand now. Jason Powell is up first. Hi there. I was just wondering if you have a decided order of review for the applications after the social equity status applications, if you're going to start with tier one and outdoor mixed cultivation licenses first, or it's purely on the order of submission or completion. Thanks. Thanks, Jason. James. Hi, everyone. Thank you for approving one of my clients today. Very excited. I'm concerned that only two testing labs have applied. And I was wondering whether you all have thought about what you might be able to do to encourage more applications in that very important part of the supply chain. And I mean you guys got I think you had nine prequels for that category. And there's a whole host of hemp certified testing labs. And maybe there's some outreach that could be done. I don't know. But I'd be really, really worried, in fact, I am really, really worried about the paucity of applications for testing labs. I'm sure you guys are too. Thank you. Thanks, Dave. Anyone else who joined by the link? Raise your virtual hands. Here are your frogs. Hey, guys. I was just wondering if you could comment to maybe how you're going through reviewing licenses, whether you look at the social equity ones first and then make several letters, whether they're missing something or whatever. And then they're moving on to the non-social equity, say outdoor or mixed cultivators. Just kind of concerned. I mean, here we are end of May. I submitted my application first of May. And yet I haven't been contacted with anything that I'm missing or anything like that. So I'm wondering if you could speak to what you're seeing as a turnaround, whether you're dealing with things right now that we're in April and that there's a four week lag or something to that to kind of give us some hope or some kind of idea of whether I'm going to have plants in the ground this year or if it's going to be June or July. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Austin. Hi. Thanks for everything you're doing. I would like to reiterate what the last person just said about I'm assuming for everyone, except for the person or the two outdoor growers you approved today are not going to be growing for this season. And I was wondering if in going forward with applications and approvals, if there are some later in the year, if outdoor growers will be kind of grant if they're going to be expected to pay for a license fee for a year in which they're not growing. But that's my comment. Thank you. That's awesome. Red clover analytics. Hey folks, how you doing? One more time. Thank you very much for all your time and all you're doing right now. The only comment I have is we are still awaiting a little bit more on recommendations for testing limits and all that stuff, missing things like water content and a couple others. Just comment that we would like to see more of that so we can prepare ourselves for what's coming. Again, we appreciate your time and everything you do for us. Thank you. Thanks, Aaron. So again, feel free to raise your virtual hand if you have a public comment. If you join via the phone, you can hit star six to unmute yourself. All right, I guess I will close the public comment window just to respond to a few things that we heard. Order of review. We have guidance up on our website which explains the order of review. We do have the ability. I mean, we start with social equity and women and minority owned businesses. And then first at you, we also have to prioritize people with an existing medical dispensary and good standing. Then we move to general applications in the order that they're received. We do have the ability to move people around in the queue. If it's for the proper functioning of the market, which I think outdoor cultivators could likely make an argument that they could be moved. So generally speaking, we're trying to be fair recognizing some of the conditions in Vermont that require us to prioritize outdoor cultivation. With respect to testing labs, we do have the ability. We set it many times to wave people that are certified as hemp farmers in the agency of agriculture into the program without any additional requirements. So when it comes to the things that the board can do, I think we've kind of created a glide path for testing labs and the more the better, of course. But there's only so much that the board can do to kind of encourage more businesses to join the market. So other than that, any other comments? Julia or Kyle, you'd like to make? I was just gonna say what you just mentioned, we did right into our rules that if you're licensed through the agency of agriculture to test any of the parameters one or all, you got a glide path. So I don't think that the numbers that Bryn displayed were a complete accurate depiction of where our testing labs are. I would submit and hope anyways. With regards to the comments from Red Clover, all of those limits that you referred to are either in guidance or those action limits are in our rules. So I would encourage you to go back and look at level two and then guidance we have on other applicable action limits as it relates to testing. I was just looking on our website for the... All right, they're all there. And we get it, we're moving as fast as we can here at the board. Folks need to meet us halfway and get us complete applications. I know some folks don't know if they're incomplete or not, but a frost warnings are still in effect for most of the state anyways from an outdoor perspective. So we're of understanding. Yeah, and I would just say that every time we bring on a new person, our processes speed up by that much and we're in the midst of hiring, I think at least three licensing positions currently. So that's the team that we have in place not only had to review the applications, they had to build the procedures to review them. And so now that those are in place, things can move on more quickly. Keep in mind that we are currently outpacing what I think New Jersey and Massachusetts and a few other states have done. So we're doing... I think we're doing it the right way. All right. Well, other than that, I think we can adjourn the meeting. Thank you all for joining us. Thanks for the input and thanks to our staff as always for your tireless work.