 In fact, I can say that as of today, our incredible staff has reviewed every tier one outdoor cultivator application. That was our biggest cohort of outdoor cultivators, and they are currently in the process of reviewing the remaining 22 outdoor applications for tiers two through five. If you are an outdoor cultivator, I can tell you that everyone here recognizes we're down to the wire, but we're almost there. And if you see an incomplete letter from the board, please do what you can to fix those issues in recent applications quickly as possible. Watch in this market. As an aside, when it comes to banking and insurance, I need to clarify that the bank account and the insurance policy has to be specifically for your cannabis business. It's not sufficient that you incidentally have a personal checking account or, for instance, a homeowner's insurance policy. Financial institutions need to know that the source of your deposits is from the cannabis business. And insurance companies won't cover most incidents unless you have a cannabis-specific policy. I mentioned our incredible staff. We are ready to announce we've hired another top-notch employee, Kerry Jager. He will be our director of compliance. He probably doesn't need much of an introduction. He interacted with the agency of agriculture at all in the past 30 years. You likely know him. But for those who don't, he's got a chemistry and a botany background. He essentially set up the agency's pesticide program, the hemp program, and the state lab just to name a few of his accomplishments. He served on our advisory committee and led the public health subcommittee. And you know, when I think about Vermont's reputation for quality, it's hard to overstate Kerry's role in setting up the systems that allowed our farmers here to flourish. And honestly, after my wife, he was literally the first person I called when I was offered this job. And I probably wouldn't have accepted, but for his assurance that we could do it and we could do it the Vermont way. I promised him I'd keep my enthusiasm to a seven out of 10. So I'm just going to end by saying that we're very grateful for your willingness to take on this challenging role. Finally, I just wanted to address a question that we received in public comment about a vote that we took at our meeting last week. The board added an agenda item to discuss whether an applicant's proposed operating plan violated the one license per location rule. Just as a refresher, our rules will require that a licensee may operate across two distinct parcels, only if they share a common border. The issue that the board needed to decide was whether two non-abutting parcels that were connected by a privately owned easement across another property would violate this one license per location rule. Just to be clear, both parcels and the easement were all held by the same person. Given the likelihood of litigation, depending on how that issue resolved, the board went into executive session. We heard the advice of our general counsel and we returned to our regular meeting and really voted two to one that the proposed operating plan did in fact satisfy our one license per location rule. Otherwise, I don't have anything else to add. This week, Kyle, Julie, do you want to say anything? Yeah, I'll say a couple of things. One, I've gotten a couple of messages from folks at AG that are certainly sorry to see Kerry go, although, you know, they're certainly excited for him and his new role after 30 years. I'm so ditto on keeping the level of enthusiasm to a seven. I wanted to quickly talk about our packaging waiver request and some general observations that I've seen. We've got about a dozen waiver requests in the pipeline right now. And just, you know, generally speaking, they're all over the place for different types of packaging for different cannabis, you know, flower products, cannabis, you know, vape carts, other products. And, you know, one of the things that I think is really important for folks to remember is that our goal with this is trying to reduce plastic waste. So, you know, for instance, I've seen a couple requests come through that have simply made the argument that their plastic, their traditional petrochemical plastic container weighs less than metal and glass alternatives and therefore, you know, it's it's it's promoting less greenhouse gases from a transportation perspective to get from a supplier to your to your business. And while I think that's true in isolation, it's not necessarily looking at the full lifecycle analysis of a petrochemical manufactured product. And so I want folks to remember that we're trying to reduce plastic waste and to just tell us that the greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation portion that those that scope three of an LCA isn't going to pass muster as it relates to trying to grant or seek a waiver. And the other thing is, you know, folks are not taking the right initiative to think about how these issues relate to what Vermonters are paying attention to, which is plastic waste issues, PFAS issues, so on and so forth, and are instead just copying and pasting sustainability, sometimes marketing claims of a specific brand or packaging company into the questions that we're hoping that you're taking a good faith crack at answering. So just, you know, from my perspective, I've worked in the environmental policy making world for my short career, environmentalism is about tradeoffs, depending on the issue that you're trying to address. It's hard to address and correct every single issue out there, because there's a lot of them and it's like whack-a-mole. You try and solve one thing, there's another thing that pops up. And I certainly understand and respect the argument that, you know, the transportation sector of glass and its weight per unit can output more GHDs, but that doesn't take into account so many other things from a primary pollutant perspective and, you know, what we're, you know, what we're focused and tasked with right here. So if anybody wants to come and talk to me, I'm sure you can find my contact information, we can talk about environmental policy. Happy to always do that, but please be a little bit more intentional with your request as it relates to packaging. Just add that I'm excited to have Kerry join us as well. I've only known him for a short time, but my every interaction has been a good one and a positive one and very informative. He's been willing to educate me on things about agriculture that I did not know and I very much appreciated that, that body of knowledge. And then also kudos again to our staff for the just absolute huge amount of discretionary effort that they're applying to their work every day to do all of this review and the time that they're taking while also hiking a very steep learning curve. So it's very impressive. Great. So all we have before we turn to the agendas to approve our minutes from our last meeting on June 22nd. Is there a motion? So moved. Seconded. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. So next on the agenda, Executive Director remarks about Act 158. So unlike the title of this bill suggests, it's not actually about regulating small cultivators as farming. It does apply some agricultural exemptions to small outdoor cultivators, but really this bill became the vehicle for a separate bill that included a number of miscellaneous amendments to the cannabis laws. You have a full summary of everything that it does up on our website. But given that some of these amendments impact how licensees may want to set up their business, we thought that it would be good for Bryn to walk through some of the more substantive changes. So if you're prepared to do that. I am. Yep. And just to be clear, I am doing a high level overview of those aspects of Act 158 that are going to have an impact on people who are setting up their business and plan to be a part of the market this year. I'm not going to do a deep dive into everything with those. And there is an act summary as the chair mentioned and find it on our website under the laws, rules and regulations tab. And that provides a pretty comprehensive summary or an explanation of every section of Act 158. So just five points from the bill that I want to touch on. So first, prior to the passage of Act 158, both delivery and online ordering were prohibited specifically by the statute. So now after passage of 158, online pre-ordering of cannabis from a licensed retailer for in-person pickup is permitted. So delivery remains prohibited and all online ordering customers will need to go in person to pick up their products. So that means that all of the requirements that are found in our rule regarding age verification and cash management requirements and transaction limits will still apply to anyone who's making an online pre-order and going into a retail establishment to pick it up. Second, previously all retail licensees were not permitted to package cannabis for retail sale. Other types of licensees were allowed to package. So it's sort of unclear if that was an oversight or not. But Act 158 clarifies that licensed retail establishments are permitted to package cannabis for retail sale. So the practical effect of that is that there is a benefit to cultivators who will now not have to package all of their flour for retail sale. And there may be less consumer waste generated because cultivators can ship their product in bulk to retailers for them to package for retail sale. Third, licensed cultivators and wholesalers can sell seeds and clones now to other licensees, but not to the public. So prior to the passage of 158, there wasn't a legal path for licensed cultivators to purchase seeds and clones, as there is. Fourth, so this is not specifically from 158, but it's actually from the Cannabis Fee Bill and 158 made a little amendment to it. But the Cannabis Fee Bill established a product licensing process and an associated fee for licensing product with the board. So this process is going to ensure that all consumer facing products go through a review process here within the board that will include a review of product ingredients, labels and packaging. And that way the board can ensure that all of these consumer facing products are in compliance with board regulation. So Act 158 clarified that all cannabis producers have to register their products that they create and package for retail sale. And I want to make it clear that every licensed cannabis establishment that plans to produce and package products for retail sale will need to submit information to the board about their product in order for the board to review it and register every product that will be available for retail sale. So this is currently in development. So we are currently developing our product licensing portal, which will ultimately be a part of the license application portal. Until that is available, it will be a web form. So that web form will be available for licensees in the coming weeks. And that form is going to allow you to input information about your products, including the strain of flour or the ingredients, if it's a cannabis product, the label and details about the package. So that is a requirement. And your ability to satisfy that requirement will be available quite soon. And we will provide more information as it's available. Lastly, Act 158 gave the board regulatory authority over hemp testing, hemp infused products, and all synthetic cannabinoids. So that product registration process that I just described is also going to apply to hemp products. Given the emerging issues around novel psychoactive cannabinoids like Delta 8 and Delta 10, the board's plan is to prohibit products containing these synthetic cannabinoids until there is reliable research about their safety. And lastly, the Agency of Agriculture is going to be shifting their regulation over hemp cultivators to the U.S. Department of Agriculture at the end of this year. And they will be shifting the regulation of hemp producers and hemp products to the board. So the board is going to have oversight of hemp testing and hemp infused products that are going to be sold to the public. So more information about all of that will be available soon. But I wanted to provide an overview of these new changes since they will have a direct impact on folks that are going to be participating in the market this year. And I imagine that questions will be reserved for the end of our meeting during public comment period. Great. Thanks for that, Bryn. Are you now prepared to shift gears and review the recommendation? Wait, can I ask you a question about that real quick just to make sure that you have a question for us? That real quick just to make sure that we all understand. Are there any changes that we'll have to make to our rules to make them sort of align with the with the act? Yes, so there will be some additional detail that we will need to add to our rule in our next cycle of rulemaking regarding the oversight and regulation of the hemp producers and those products and also the product registration process. Thank you. Any other questions for Bryn about this? All right. Thank you all on. Nations on social equity, pre-qualification and license application. Hey. So as always, the numbers that you see in the tables in the form are up to date as of Monday, so two days prior to the meeting. Here are the pre-qualification application numbers. The board has five that are recommended for pre-qualification today. You can see the total numbers here that we've got 210 who have been approved for pre-qualification already. We don't have any that are complete and under review. 330 were submitted, been incomplete, and the majority of those have been withdrawn. So the pre-qualification approval process is really wrapping up. There will likely not be, if there are any more, they will just be stragglers. So these should probably be among the last that we're reviewing for now. So we have five up for review today. Staff are recommending pre-qualification for these five applicants because they've demonstrated suitability for pre-qualification and compliance with the rule. So we have submission 287, which is a tier one outdoor cultivation. Submission 401, tier three manufacturing. Submission number 590, retail. Submission 594, tier one indoor cultivation. And submission 607 for retail. I think kind of a question just comes to my head. It's not related to that, but originally when we drafted our rules, we had like tier one product manufacturer, the kind of the solid base extract and the kind of the most heavily regulated, right? Is that right? And then the legislature flipped it in our fee bill. Are our rules reflective of that change? In almost every place, our rules are reflective of that change. I think there may have been one spot, and I don't have it memorized, where we didn't flip it, but legislation controls always. So even if we didn't flip it in every place in our rules, the legislation controls, the law controls, it is tier one is the lowest, tier three is the most complex, and that's gonna be true in every instance. So if there's ever any confusion, check with us. It's right almost everywhere, but there may be one spot where we missed it. I only mentioned it because those license types are about to open. I don't want people accidentally applying for the wrong license type. Yeah, so if you look at, I am very certain that in rule, the main part of rule one, where it describes the tiers, that's all correct. I believe there may have been another spot, may not even have been, I think it may have been in rule two, where the reference was backwards, but the main part of rule one, correctly reflects the legislation. So if you follow rule one, you're doing the right thing, you'll be fine. Okay, next up are the license application numbers. Sorry, can I just add one more thing? So for those of you who are getting ready, it's rule 1.3.3 and that does have the correct listing of what the various tiers are permitted to do. So if you're thinking about being a product manufacturer, please refer to that section of the rule, that you know what you're applying for Friday. Sorry, keep going. So here are the numbers for the applications for a full license. You can see we've added two columns here for approved and issued. So this approved status means that you have, your application has been officially approved at a regular board meeting. An issued status means that we have actually sent you to the link to your cannabis establishment license because you have complied with any additional requirements and you have paid your fees. So we've licensed, so we've got about almost 40 people in that status have either approved by the board or actually have issued, have their license has been issued to them. And we have 12 folks up today for review, those recommendations. So as always, each of the applicants that are appearing on your register today have demonstrated compliance with all the requirements for their license that are contained in both our rules and in the statute. So I will go through them one by one. We have Back Country Organics, Tier One Mixed Cultivator, Green Mountain Ganja Guys, Tier Five Outdoor Cultivator, Moon Waters Farm, Tier One Outdoor Cultivator, Harrogan Farm, Tier One Outdoor Cultivator, Busy Bees Organics, Tier One Outdoor Cultivator, Coni LLC, Tier One Outdoor, Banting Farm, Tier One Outdoor, Roaring Branch Farm, Tier One Outdoor, I'm Outgrown, Tier One Outdoor, Birchhaven Farm, Tier One Outdoor, Purple Lark Farm, Tier One Outdoor, and the Dank Closet, Tier One Indoor. So that is your list for today. I'll move on to the social equity license application. So here is a summary of where our social equity applicants fall in the process. We have two that are up for their license review today, nine approved and eight issued. So just under 20 social equity applicants that have been approved for a license. So we have five applicants that are being recommended today for social equity status. Submission number 234, that for recommending social equity status for this applicant as they meet the criteria for a social equity individual applicant that's defined in board rule. Submission 701, also recommended for social equity status as they meet the criteria for a social equity individual applicant. Submission 646, meets the criteria for social equity business applicants that's defined in board rule. So staff is recommending social equity status for them. Submission 635, meets the criteria for social equity individual applicant. And submission 484, this applicant also meets the criteria for social equity individual applicant. So staff are recommending social equity status for this applicant also. We have one applicant whose staff is recommending social equity status denial as they don't meet the criteria for a social equity individual applicant as defined in board rule and that submission number 641. So is there a motion to approve? I move that the board accept each of the recommendations for pre-qualifications, social equity status and licensing approval as presented to us by staff and the community. Second. Any discussion about any of these? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay, great. Then next on our agenda, public comment. We'll do this kind of the same way we always do. If you join via the link, feel free to just raise your virtual hands. We'll do our best to call on you in the order that you raise your hands. And then if you join via phone and like to make a comment, we'll move to you after we've kind of gotten through people that joined that video. So Nellie, would you mind helping us out just with the order? Absolutely. We have Marie first. Marie with grow. Marie, we can't hear you if you are commenting. There we go. There you are. We got you. Okay, can you hear me now? Okay, great. Thank you so much. First, I want to thank all of you for everything you've done and everything you do. I've had some great conversations with some of the workers there and just truly appreciate it. So that's first. Now I do have a new question with the whole thing of product registration coming up. As this isn't the first question I have, but actually I'll make it my first question. With the product registration process, does a manufacturer tier two have to do that? Or is that strictly in retail? So Marie, we don't traditionally answer questions during this period. We do appreciate your question. And they will know, I don't know, please feel free to ask because we are developing guidance around all of these issues. And any question that we hear is a good one for us to kind of help draft our guidance. So do feel free to ask. It's just, we won't be answering questions directly today. Okay. Well, I'll keep my eyes open for an answer on that somewhere. This other issue though is more of a comment. I'm hoping there's something y'all can do to help because my concern it has to do with the banking and insurance. It's very frustrating where I'm coming from because I'm gonna be your typical Vermont standard, small craft, licensee. And what I find we're up against is many of us have cleaned out our retirements to pursue something that we didn't even think we were ever gonna see in our lifetime. And now I realize you guys cannot control what the federal status of cannabis is, hence the financing and insurance issues. But if there is some way to alleviate the stress upfront for licensees, that would go a long way because what I'm up against right now is I cannot, it's basically like we're seeing price gouging as a small business going out there trying to get these checking accounts. They're going to charge us astronomical amounts and right now every dime I have is going into trying to start up my business. And I'm a one-man show. So everyone hears cannabis and they immediately see dollar signs and they don't see the single mom or dad or the mom and pop business. So the fee structures right now that banks and the policies that the insurance companies are going to be giving us, they're looking for really extravagant amounts of money from us to set up these accounts. And it puts me right out of the running if this holds true. So I have yet to see what the whole manufacturing application process, I started the prequel with Drew. So now I'm gonna be doing the whole thing come Friday, but I'm a little nervous about whether I'll be able to follow all the way through based on those type of hindrances. Thanks, thanks, Mary. Okay, thank you. Next we have three frog farms. Hey guys, I know you probably can't comment on it now but maybe for the future meeting. I was just wondering if, because you always mentioned tier one outdoor. I was wondering if you're considering tier one mixed as an outdoor because for a lot of us, we're solely really going for the outdoor portion to get started. And I'm wondering if that, that tier one mix takes precedent over the outdoor twos and tier threes that you're beginning to issue. And that's all I got. Thank you very much. Thank you. Pito is next. Hi everybody. I'm just, I just wanna address an issue today as a PSA to any indoor growers that I just got off the phone with Dan from Efficiency Vermont earlier this morning. And I was surprised to hear that a lot of growers initially reached out but are not following up with them and they literally have money to give away. My tier two indoor grow got $53,000 from Efficiency Vermont. That's actual real money they're gonna put just straight into the project. Granted, you definitely gotta switch from your old HPS lighting, which I think it's definitely time to do anyway. And so for anybody out there that thinks that the modern LED lighting hasn't caught up yet, it has surpassed HPS lighting. So please switch over, call Efficiency Vermont and get your money. Thank you. Thanks Tito. Thanks Tito. Chris. Yes, I just wanted to thank you guys for all the work you're doing. Imagine how hard it is on you all to be the intermediaries between the people and the government, which is a lot of us have been battling against a long time. And some of us would even say it's been a war. I just wanna point out the fact that there's a lot of greed showing up on that side of things. We're all in this position here of trying to do what we can do to make our businesses happen. And we're jumping through all the hoops, we're getting the packaging right, we're getting our inspections done. And then we see these licensing fees. And I understand that the licensing would be expensive for this first time around. But for it to be that same fee going forward for everybody really seems like we're getting gouged. And it just doesn't really make sense. The Vermont way is a farmer's market. And as a tier one farmer, I wanna be able to take my product to a farmer's market. And I don't wanna have to pay $10,000 a year to have a license to do that. Now, it's only up to people like you to step forward when somebody says we need to get money from these guys. We need to take them because they're gonna make so much money. We're gonna get the money from them. You know what, we're just, some of us are just little farmers doing what we can as a side job. And there's really nobody besides people like you to step up and say, no, we're not gonna accept that kind of greed. And when there's taxation without representation in this country, people get pissed. And it wasn't that long ago that people were dumping plant material into the Boston Harbor. And it started off a whole chain of events that led to our freedoms. Now, we just need to keep that in mind as we move forward and realize the frustration level that we could all be having. How we all wanna be a part of a legitimate system. But when we get pushed, it pushes us to not wanna be legitimate. And I hope you can do your best to be that intermediary for us. Thank you. It's Chris. Yareem. Hello, how are you guys? Thank you again for everything you do. And I wanna applaud you for two things. One of them is the work that you're putting through you and your staff getting these licenses out. But one thing that I wanted to comment on and applaud you on is that I wanted to hear about the hemp program being transferred into the CCB. And one of my main reasons of coming in today was to ask about those things. And being able to hear you guys speak about it before I could even inquire for it. It's really, really commendable and really great. I am still looking for a bit more of when it comes to the medical side of things because it does affect our business overall and how we run ourselves. So it would be nice to be able to hear some things about the medical program as we move along. But nonetheless, thank you for everything that you guys have been doing so far. And we keep hoping for more. Thank you. Have a good day. Yareem. Dave. Hey, following up on a couple of earlier comments, and sort of in the spirit of Tito's comment, just got noticed today that Vermont Federal Credit Union is significantly revising, lowering its fee structure. And I just wanna make a PSA about that. For manufacturers, their fees are actually like super low. Tier ones is 75 bucks a month. You're not gonna find anything lower anywhere in the cannabis industry. So they're still high for retailers or still high for wholesalers, but for growers and manufacturers, I really recommend that everyone check them out. They're even now talking about fee waivers in the initial months, realizing that folks won't have money until they have sales, which will take some time. So Vermont Federal Credit Union. That's all. Dave. Anyone else who joined via the link, please raise your virtual hand. And in the meantime, we'll go to people to join via phone. If you wanna make a public comment, you can hit star six to unmute yourself. Now, are you seeing any phones on muting over on your end? I, someone not on the phone just unmuted, but I can't see whose hand that was. No one put up a hand, so I'm not sure. Jeff, stop. Hello? Yeah, we can hear you. Yeah, Jeff, stop. I have a question. Number 641, social equity. You guys voted to not approve me today. 641, is that correct? Just one sec. Yep. Yep. So, you know, I'm a convicted felon. I was not incarcerated in jail, but I was at home. And I'm just seeing what it was based on, that I was not eligible. We can't answer that directly right now, but we can follow up. All right, I'd appreciate a follow up on that, because it has definitely negatively impacted my life. And it seems that all the questions that were asked, that I would qualify. And I'm just a little confused as to why not. All right, thanks, Jeff. I appreciate your help. Thank you. Any other public comments before we close? We'll close the public comment window. Just a few just reflections on some of the comments. Marie, you know, we hear you like, you know, insurance and banking, the fees are high for no other reason than the federal status. It's really not more risk to anyone. It really is just a reflection of kind of the federal illegality. Insurance is a statutory requirement. The legislature here in Vermont demanded that we ask that you have insurance. We try to kind of limit the kind of negative impact that that might have by saying you need commercially reasonable levels of insurance as opposed to stating a specific amount. And there is a waiver request that you can make if you can really demonstrate that your risk is low. If the specific business type that you're looking to start has a very low risk, you can kind of set aside some money in escrow that can cover insurance amounts in lieu of insurance. Tree frog, yeah, as soon as we're done with the outdoor, exclusively outdoor, we're moving on to the mixed years next. So that's the next step. Fees, yeah, the fees, we don't get to determine what these are. All we can do is try and keep our footprint, our fiscal footprint here at the board, as low as possible. We did kind of tell the legislature that the fees need to be low if you really truly want kind of a craft, small cultivator ethos here in Vermont. And they kind of met us halfway, I should say. And then the medical program, I think we all agree here. We've had a lot of discussion about the medical program. The bill that we proposed did not get taken up, but I think next year, or later this year, we'll be having some in-depth discussions about the future of the medical program. Any other comments, Julia or Kyle? Not today. I guess I should say I wasn't any can on Saturday and I met a lot of you in person, I think for the first time, it was a pleasure to meet you on your turf. And hope to see you again. All right, well, I will adjourn this meeting then. Thank you all for attending.