 I'm going to say, close call. So, one I can see on the screen, Ashley Reynolds. Present. Nada Hashim. Present. Jeffrey. Diego. Bill Thompson. Here, good afternoon. We also have Don Aldano taking no staff. Susanna Deigel. Good afternoon. I'm here from the Vermont Canada control board, leading us in the conversations today. And is there anyone from the public? We have both friends here. Obviously, we have no public comments. But I do want to remind everybody that they are able to go in a public comment on the Vermont Canada control board. Please, you want to know what the public comments are. And we do share this with our community group and do a summary for everyone to hear it. And then I'm going to approval a meeting minutes from Thursday. Has everybody had a chance to read that? Do you have a clue? Do you want to second it? I'll tell you that. Engine up. Engine up. Not a second. This brings us up to the important topic that we left off back. And once you're ready for the meeting, because this was an important one, which is about jizz and the transfer. You know, kind of a social equity lesson, jizz, transfer, you saw that out. And that's what we were talking about. And as I explained before, a life is just a vision. They're going to, a social equity candidate is going to sell their business to someone else. How does that work? Right. Now we talk about having the possibility of a social equity business to transfer most of the equity that's in the piece and having the time not restart. So is there going to be a good time? Or is there going to be a time for a social equity SMB within the five years, you know, that the new licensee will need to pay any cost savings the company has received through the social equity program. And then after five years, transfer of ownership is allowed without any penalty. Now there are things that we can also, we can change this. We can have for a social equity candidate or for a new social equity candidate comes on board that they respect the time cost. Show them that. For transferring to a non-social equity license, we can have no penalty. They're really wanting to hear how everybody feels about this topic. I think we're going to go up. You are. I think sometimes I get a little bit talked down in the language. I do like talking about it of selling your business. I know that's how I think about things of this sort of myself is, I think it's important for anyone who's entering any business can otherwise to have a strategy of how they're going to either exit or have a legacy brand. I think that this is really sensible. I think we should be with it as, you know, do we want to restrict anyone from their own personal gain out of the industry? I think it takes very unique people to want to get into this industry in and of itself. And putting restrictions on them is when and how and who they can sell their business to. I think it's a bit silly and probably illegal. So I think that this is what you have to pose. It's quite sensible. Can you pull back again to what you said if a social equity business sells their license fee that the clock of the program starts over, meaning that then license holders fees would be waived for the current year and then so on and so forth. Can you just clarify that, Janice? Right now our recommendation is whatever the previous owner's fee schedule was. So if they're in the third year, then the new owner picks up that third year fee but of restarting the clock. But we can make a recommendation that the clock restarts. What we're trying to prevent in putting this statute in is to have say multiple people in an organization that might be social equity licensees to have one use the social equity licensee ownership and then transfer the ownership to another social equity licensee etc. So but happy to look at the doctor's gift having every social equity restart the clock. What are your feelings about that time clock? He wants them to pick it up where the previous owner left off or how does it restart with each new candidate that comes on board with the official equity candidate? I think I'm open to either again you know really looking at excuse me we are starting this program in the first place. It's getting as many people that we possibly can with the least amount of barriers. Again this is on social equity to social equity not social equity to and not social equity. So I'm open to those options. Okay and transfer to a non-social equity licensee we think if you transfer within the first five years the new owner should be repaying any cost savings that the company has received for the social equity program. The reason being is that the new owner would not have been entitled to those cost savings. How do you feel about that? I think that that's a good situation. And then after five years transfer ownership is allowed without any penalty. I think that's fine. I mean five years is a long time. Five years is more like 15 years in the Canada space. Like dog years. I agree with you. We're protecting a guy championed out of M3 that has serious damage to it. They have been in operation for five years and they just sold their licenses for 25 million. So like that was five years but that was a long hard round out five years. So I think after five years you've earned the ability to do whatever you want. Alright thank you for that. Great comments. No matter how do you feel about this. I think let's go with section A first. So transfer to another social equity business. So I like our current idea right now with you know them adopting the previous owners piece schedule. I'm not 100% sure quite yet how to deal about the schedule restarting each time because the business that they're buying isn't just any business it's a business that inherently already has the benefit already wrapped into the business scheme that has the benefit of having a social equity license if that is helpful that makes sense. So I don't know if it would be but at the same time I also want to make sure that we are opening the gate as many people as possible but also trying to avoid the exploitation of a license bouncing back between people in any organization in order to avoid the piece schedule. So in summary how to deal is I prefer to keep it the way we have it now still on the fence about the idea of restarting the piece schedule for each time it's transferred. Thank you and about section B of the non-social equity license B retain the received non-social equity program. I agree with that. And are you okay with after five years to turn from ownership that it allows without penalty? I will agree with that. Thank you Julio how are you feeling about this? Well I'll start with the easier thing first maybe. I think that allowing transfer after five years without without payback I think it's fine. I think that transfer to a non-social equity license so then the payback the prior subsidy basically that the state is providing I think it's fine. The question really for me is whether the first affair is another is a new social equity entrance into the marketplace whether they would take over the fee schedule or be entitled to any kind of I'm not saying that necessarily that it restarts the clause but that there is any kind of subsidy and then by that I mean to break from the fees for that first year I think that such purchases can happen if and I'm really talking about transfers of people who are unrelated that is people who are not family members or existing business partners so that you don't have that gamesmanship you're talking about my assumption is you're talking about an independent purchaser I would want to you know make sure we have actually noted earlier that you would want to make sure that there's incentives for social equity players to remain in the market so I'm inclined to have some kind of break for the first year of operation either deferring it for a year the payback so maybe or assumption on the schedule book for that first transition period because we want to purchase a business that currently is failing but might have assets that are valuable which may or may not come with fruition it might be a great location branding or some combination of that but for whatever reason there could be cash flow issues that that that can be managed that the business is on a downward trajectory and so the original owner is selling to someone else and where there's going to be potential buyers I would want to I would want to have this is going to be more directed towards keeping you know that that license and the social equity sphere so I mean to that end I would I wouldn't say we're starting the clock but maybe having that first year when you buy a business that maybe better bring in new employees you know to deal with you know acquiring debt etc I would want to have some sort of key break I'm not fixed on the number but I'm inclined for that transition period for the regular for the regulatory system state to provide a more friendly ground but I'm interested in people's reactions to that well I think that's a great idea I think it gives us a balance that we want so with the transfer to another social equity business it's permitted and I guess you get a 50% break are you thinking I'm not sure I'm interested in others' ideas but that's the concept I'd like to kind of you know evaluate in the discussion that we're having today and actually at the end of the day I just wanted to kind of expand on two scenarios thinking about let's say it's a budgetary that works at this social equity it's a budgetary and they're seeing that they can run things and do things better than their boss that may have sent comments from many other industries but then we all know how difficult it is like you said for new employees or potentially renovating or changing something to the business if you are going to be acquiring it from your boss what about starting whatever the year is that that applicant is for the program let's say for example is that third year it's just never a perfect timing of when you buy a business either could we like grandfather feed into their start of their next year maybe we can resource across to the second year of the program regardless of when they perceive this so that would be a 75% deduction not a full deduction and they are not they would not be a partner of the business but I think the relation that you are not a current partner of the business and or family member because then they would just continue but if you were someone else then we would go back to the second year regardless of the time clock Suzanna I would love to hear your opinion what do you think about what we are talking about right now that a transfer to another social equity program is permitted however the new social equity license starts from the second year of these schedules regardless of when the company was taken over on that they are a business partner family member and they would have to take over where the previous owner's fee schedule was yeah I agree with that wonderful so I think we might be somewhere here so how not or how do you feel about that about those copy apps that the transfer to another social equity business yeah I think those were a lot of good ideas that were found around and I I like the idea of just automatically going to year two that is transferred to another social equity license I support that thank you so we are both going both on this filming time always fun time so I'm going to separate this into three sessions so our first one is about a transfer to a social equity business that is permitted however the new social equity licensee will go back to the second year of the fee schedule regardless of the time period it was transferred unless they are a current business partner or family member of the business and they will then start as a previous owner fee schedule if that is the case actually Julio I agree that Nada yes then we are going to roll on B&C together so it will be a bit easier a transfer to a non-social equity licensee within the first five years the new licensee will need to repay any the company received the social equity program Ashley yes Julio Nada yes and Ashley three yeses for the record for a B&C I will take this PowerPoint presentation to reflect all of this and I will add it as A&C and then our adjustments that we made to A so we will forward to that later on today and so we get to go on to benefits this is where we get really ineventive about the different ways that we really can support a social equity candidate when we are discussing this I want us to think beyond just a licensee holder you know yes people get in and be able to own your own business but we also want people to be able to be included within the candidate's industry it's really important to make sure that social equity is throughout and not just as a licensee holder and that may not be the best step for many people to take in the beginning so I want to really try to focus on a lot of these program benefits on education and how we can develop a person to understand candidates and really thrive within their role and how we implement people into different levels of the candidate's program so I'm going to start out from going over some social equity benefits for doing comparisons for different states also through those that we're focusing about they get to be first in line which we have already indicated we wanted for social equity licensees they receive training and technical assistance and assistance planning and applying for their candidate's licenses they also have access to low interest loans in Massachusetts they have a special licensee for social equity candidates only which is delivery and social consumption right now social equity candidates are allowed to have this special license into 2024 at that time they won't readjust this and it may be open to everyone they also have that license in preference and they receive training and technical assistance and management recruitment and employee training accounting and sales tax preparation and compliance, legal compliance business plan best practices in the industry assistance with raising funds or capital and they also have access to low interest loans Michigan has licensee in preference they do a lot of online workshops for technical assistance applications, they have accounting and several other programs there and then they just started a joint mentoring password program which is connecting the companies with people who are willing to do mentorships or incubator programs or to even facilitate employment as well and this is a very new venture that they've created there going on when some of the social equity benefits are what we've seen in many different states we're giving you that comparison analysis of all the different states of social equity programs out there they have a lot of the things that are so prior to the licensing and processing educational courses one of the recommendations that I would really like to make is about having cannabis certificates you can get certificates in conservation, extraction buzz tender about the business of cannabis and these are things that can carry on with them and it is just certificate to help them we often know with a lot of social equity candidates they may not have the education due to various reasons of not being able to go in there they might have been imprisoned during that time so how do we get them on equal playing field as someone else I think we should really look into cannabis certificates and there are programs out there that you provide to certificate programs that Vermont can look into or Vermont creating their own cannabis certificates with the rules and regulations along with the baseline of industry requirements that we may want to look into and also receive training and technical assistance workshops in the following areas you know the applications of the business clientation and operational development past legal compliance industry best practices one of the things that I think would be best and would allow us to use those resources of creating these workshops is to have them recorded and posted online so we have multiple access we don't have to worry about do we have a classroom that they can often into or how do we look at the numbers in order to include people if we have an online access to these things more people can join so we don't really have to look at the numbers if it's not in person and then access to little intrusions which I know we are looking at things right now to see if that would be possible and exclusive licenses which is co-op what you were to speak in a few minutes about any delivery services Nada, how do you feel about some of these options for social equity benefit? I really like the idea of providing some educational courses regarding creating business plans tax and legal compliance and that practice I think that would really make people a lot more comfortable before they dive into trying to start a business in this industry and I'm also thinking ahead to legislators who may not be in full support of what we're talking about here and the idea of Canada's certificates I think would satisfy some concerns that I'm just formulating in my head that I think other folks might end up having down the road so and also making them accessible online instead of having a requiring people to get to a classroom study I think would also be a good idea because there are some communities where you can't it's very hard to exist in Vermont without having a car and I'm thinking about folks who live far away from centers in which classrooms might end up so I just think that we shouldn't offer this online as well a good point about translational issues that they might run into and are you okay with the other things to access to people interested in learning priority and processing? Yes. Wonderful. And we're just more in depth about these licenses in a few minutes. Julio, how do you feel? I think what's been proposed is interesting what we've identified is the sort of assistance we would expect I know we don't receive public comment I guess today because I'm not that familiar with the starting blocks of the industry I just don't know whether we're covering all of the ground of people who would why end of the market would I would be interested in hearing that but I agree it's pretty broad and some of them might come to me it's just obvious that would be helpful Yeah and I'm one of the people that this is a basis of the workshops and classes that should be offered that they should not be limited to this, the Vermont Canada control board and as the social equity program develops and any new workshop or educational material that can be provided does be provided I think that this is a framework for now Yeah on the options topics that are right now would probably be the belief knowledge, what would be the point about access to long interest loans I don't know whether that means training about how to get that access or whether it means direct assistance and so you know I'm a little uncertain about how to respond to that but the rest of them I think are the stated thing to be to be itself out of that need So that one would be direct access which we would try I know the Vermont Canada control board is trying to look into right now Oh yeah I'm sorry Yeah I think we're still making sure that that is possible but I think it is a strong recommendation that we should make a report if it is possible. Ashley what are your thoughts? Thank you Gina I am not a lawyer so this preface is saying that how do we define priority priority licensing and processing they have express priority so they would be to the front of the line and I know that we're concerned with folks feeling tough to smelly disordered against the residency requirements are folks going to have a hard time non-social equity applicants are they going to have issues with priority licensing and processing and I know this is a concern that's happening in other states as well as far as like you know is that defeating the whole purpose of creating the quality if there's priority over somebody over another person? We build back again to that definition of injury how do we run beneath the situation where because of the injury that they sustained they were behind everyone else maybe they were in prison or you know more from a low-social economic home so that there was harm done that didn't allow them to advance to their full capability so what we're trying to say here is to say that we're seeing that that's about harm done and we're going to make it a priority that you get into this industry ahead of what's built in that gap so that's what that's what we're discussing right now okay so if I see that I see it in writing and I say oh okay that means that that is something that is on the table here that there will be priority and I just want to bring the fact that that is something that has been a hot button for other states surrounding the definition of giving priority that is all of those I mean I think this is fantastic I think as someone who's completed the cannabis science and medicine court at the UVM one of the first ones in the country it's fantastic it's online easily accessible I think that would be a wonderful thing to introduce to anybody who's getting into the industry not just social equity advocates definitely receiving training and technical assistance there's so much that we can't do that's a traditional thing that you can do in any other business besides cannabis so that would keep learning curve for anyone in an application assistance and understanding what you're signing over to having a business plan I think it's a huge I think it's a huge benefit I did not have one coming into the industry so I think extremely valuable tax and legal compliance I mean any and all of these things cannabis industry best practices I mean we're going to have a compliance and enforcement and safety we're going to have a pretty standard workbook to go off of of how to and how not to do things so access to an anxious loan I think that's always a given for anyone who's looking to separate business and then let's cut off a little bit but exclusive licenses and co-op and delivery services can you perhaps go back to that slide that you had about Massachusetts having a special social equity and having to delivery delivery and social consumption that would just mean that social equity candidates are only eligible are not only eligible but they're eligible exclusively for those two types of licenses that has to apply for those types of licenses they are still a lot of social equity programs allow for priority licensing for social equity candidates as you mentioned in different states like Massachusetts and Colorado they have delivery only for social equity candidates right now it's about into 2024 where they then will re-evaluate and then maybe open it up to everyone else I have slides for co-op and delivery so we'll discuss that in just a few minutes to get more clarity on it but just really concerned with the other benefits for now yeah thanks for answering all of that that helps me a lot and I think it's a wonderful, wonderful benefit to start with right and Suzanne how do you feel about these benefits when the exclusive licenses turn out yeah I think that they seem agreeable I am also I mean I know that it's always welcome to take a model from other states and it's also nice to be bold and go beyond what other states are offering so I would encourage you to do this if you did create it as well thank you and you will see some creative juices flowing in that if we can get to those websites today that is definitely very remote oriented so I would like to vote on these social equity benefits but not both on the licensees with exclusive licenses we're just bestowed independently so Nader how do you feel about the social equity benefits that are listed here not including the exclusive licenses at this time although yes thank you Julia with the understanding that this is a non-exclusive list yes yes thank you and Ashley I agree Julia with that as long as this is a this is it I can vote with this but I'd also like to know what that runway is for priority licensing and processing which I'm sure we'll take into detail it well we can discuss that right now so it was just having a be able to be pushed to the front of the line I understand that when the industry is in inception but like a year from now and two years from now I don't have the answers how would that play into somebody who has their license waiting for a review for three years and then a social equity applicant then goes ahead and sends I just don't know that much about when the hierarchy is established I think we would have to speak to Vermont and say what they feel a priority licensing would be and hopefully someone's not waiting three years for a license but I do understand that because I have seen quite a long licensing in other states but yes I think we need to let them determine what priority means for them because they don't know the amount of application so I would let them determine what that means but that we are suggesting that priority licensing and processing happen for these candidates so thank you we have three guesses and I will make notes will make this recommendation that this should be a starting point and that we should have follow up and be looking at the resources that we offer to make sure that we are sufficiently helping a social equity licensing for the social equity candidate in general then while we go to exclusive licenses I'm not sure if we want to make this a time limit do we want to say for the first three years that we can have a call for a delivery license for a social equity candidate so delivery license is just a career service for just funds you know you're allowed to deliver to customers they already have this in the medicinal cannabis program it is not currently in the recreational guidelines so we would have to make this as a recommendation that they add delivery as a license for delivery for recreational cannabis but just want to let you know that we are just making this as a recommendation that doesn't mean that it will happen one of the caveats I would like to say is that someone must have a reliable vehicle a car with an alarm system that it allows for GPS tracking device and that there is a way of locking the cannabis that someone can't even actually do it I am not going to determine what that looks like but making a guideline that you know the Vermont Canada control board looks at ways of creating this safety one of the reasons for the delivery license is that this is an inexpensive way to get into the industry which is sort of a concern for social equity license so I am going to start with you Huiliel and how what are your thoughts? I'm not sure yet so I mean these are things I hadn't thought about before you brought them up today so I'm going to have to think about it a little bit more sorry to say oh that's fair enough and this is big because we're almost at the end of our time so if we can just go to another, how are you feeling on this one? I think a delivery license is a good idea but you know looking at this through a social equity lens I think we're going to have to think a bit more about the definition of a reliable vehicle with an alarm system and who I'm thinking about folks who may have cars that are a bit older because they can't afford newer cars that have alarm systems or GPS tracking devices I mean finding a way to lock the candidate should be easy enough but those are just my initial thoughts at first glance of looking at this delivery license thank you one of the reasons for those for alarm system and GPS is that we also have to ensure the safety of Vermont's constituents and so I would not want yet it may cost them more to get their car up to date but I don't want home to occur not having those things but maybe one of the things we can take away from is how can we do have the safety elements without those things if you want to think about those Ashley? I'm looking at the time here too and I want to make sure there's time for a public comment I have a little bit more time I am in favor of delivery services for sure I am very confused on their independent contractor and then they work with a bunch of different dispensaries to deliver the candidates to homes to other dispensaries if there's co-ops and there's a little bit more framework what it really looks like what a delivery service would really look like for Vermont and who they would be servicing most importantly how they would be protected as from a business standpoint I think about where I'm from ensuring company vehicles that my employees then do delivery or do certain things that are surrounding the business and how involved that is just to have a company vehicle so I'm not really here but I want to leave room here for a public comment but I need just a little bit more time and I'm wondering what the NACB for next week as far as like what are other states doing is it like an Uber driver like business model I guess I have a lot of questions about what it is in general there are different models that are out there one of those being a business life or owning a truck which has it I was trying to make this as open and as possible so that the Vermont candidate control board can really determine what is at that interest for Vermont without being so limited but we can bring you some models to sort of look at just to give you some more clarity or ways that the Vermont candidate control board may want to present it to the legislators and Susanna what are your thoughts I have a question that we need to get through but what is the legal limit for windows in Vermont and is it limited in Vermont can we permit these to be doctors although maybe if we do we're also human with these hey are you doing an extra doctor I don't know that is a great question would you know another yeah you can't have any pints on the front windows you can have pints on the back windows but the front passenger and driver seats can't have anything at all thank you for answering that question and great ideas great thoughts and now we're going to open it up to public comment public comment do you want to give it a start can you come right here please the question's name in the chat box I'll have to send it to you after Gina I can't do that I'm not able to do that in a moment good afternoon thank you everyone my name is Zachary Tyson so I got a few comments one regarding priority review and processing I think that is integral to a successful social equity regulation two you were mentioning application assistance who would be providing that assistance is it coming from the state I mean I know well funded applicants they hire companies all the time to write their applications so I'm just curious where that would be coming from three I think there was a mention of a social equity general fund I don't know if that was in Act 164 but I'm curious I get to really hear any discussion about that and four regarding delivery licenses there's a company called Ease out of California I believe I think they would be very beneficial for us to look at and see you know how they handle it from there so kind of touched on a lot of topics there but that's kind of both of my comments for now thank you hi everybody I'm Ben Mervis thank you for hearing me again and also for this meeting really excited at the vote so far and just want to second Zach's statement about how helpful these benefits are going to be I'll keep things concise today and just say that we my business partner I mentioned online and as well as many people that we're speaking to within the community are very interested in seeing social consumption also added to this list of exclusive for social equity candidates particularly if you're already considering including delivery in the recommendation which is not currently listed in the license types we really think it would be important to consider consumption particularly because of the when we talk about disproportionate impact on BIPOC communities people of color people impacted by the war on drugs possession and consumption are the number one reasons for arrest just going to remind you it's about four times if you're a person of color you're about four times more likely to be arrested for one of those two activities than your white counterparts and this goes up even more disproportionately in states that are less diverse such as Vermont more rural parts of New York they also saw that this one is high at 84% of arrests for people of color versus white people so we'll ask you to consider that please, thank you other public comments? actually I don't yep hi everyone Dave Silverman from Middlebury the two quick things on the the scope of the technical assistance program that you're contemplating one thing that I think you could think about maybe long term is having technical assistance beyond direct industry jobs to ancillary fields so for example you could provide technical assistance for folks on how to be HVAC installers specifically in the cannabis industry and that could help people people who would fit into the equity applicant definition but who are not actually applying for any equity licenses but you know there are people who are trying to help get into ancillary fields not plan-touching so you know HVAC installers, contractors accountants you can really wrongly gam it so you know that's one thing that I think you could look at in other words you think about sort of like helping folks with industry best practices it occurs to me you could do something really interesting with a sort of non-inspection farm visit role where you could hire a person who would go to farms and help people solve problems whether that be on site or even over Zoom I think that's something that folks would have liked in the HEM program early on where you had crop failures due to issues that people who are not familiar with the cannabis plant weren't able to solve but people who have a lot of familiarity with that plant would be able to easily solve and maybe that would be something that you could do you know specifically for equity applicants that would help them get a leg up in the industry so thank you very much Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Some of the things that are mentioned we will be discussing especially about the cannabis funds and the money there who will be getting to that next on our Thursday call so I do feel that that is really important and one thing before we leave I would like to discuss the co-op license for you to also leave away with this because this is a something that we're really going to have to talk about and this is one license that is one more specific license this is not a model that I can pull from another state but this is something that I think it is really important and as we said earlier and someone mentioned that there is a cannabis development fund it is very limited right now there's 500,000 that's allocated to the fund and there is possible funds that might be added to it which can be about additional 50,000 from each integrated licensees but we're not sure how many of those licensees will actually come out yet so right now we have to deal with the fact that there are 500,000 and we're not sure exactly how many licensees there's what we need to licensees that will be applied so we see and on top of that all of the education programs that we're setting out to be on and all of these licenses also need to be paid from this 500,000 so if we did a small loan for applicants it would be very tiny you know we can be talking about 5 to 10,000 or large loans and it would be to very few applicants and as we know the cannabis business is very expensive to maintain and we don't want to test the social equity applicants up for failure and one of the most important things is working together United is stronger you know dealing with the issues that maybe one person doesn't know how to deal with but another person does may have that and so that would be the call of life would be approach so a different approach to is to share the resources to pool these resources together and for the resources to be joined in order to purchase land and equipment to allow for a social equity candidate to work together and be able to go through all the changes and we all know that the most expensive thing right now is to sell like it is land and it is equipment it's much more expensive than just the application waiver that we can provide in the life we see and now we can think about maybe the social equity candidates may pay a small amount of money to support the program and to pay for the land but I think we should consider having the facilitation of the process in South Canada if we need someone having a site that can actually help them with it and this would work really well with the farm to consume their license that everyone has been speaking about and which would be very unique that we have. I'm just going to leave it there with you guys because it's a really important topic and you really need the time to think about what does that mean for Vermont and what does that mean for the funding that is available and everyone who please come and join us next week to hear your public comments but you can also put public comments online please go to the Vermont National Board website and let's hear your feedback from what we have today today and the community has done a great job thank you so much and if we need to review a few exclusive lesbues that I've put forward can I have a motion to adjourn?