 Pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021 and extended again by Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2023, this meeting will be conducted by a remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so in the following manner by emailing Steve McCarthy at McCarthy asset Amherst m a dot gov that's m c c a r t h y s at Amherst m a dot gov. No in person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. In the event that we are unable to do so for reasons of economic hardship and despite best efforts, we will post on the Amherst website and audio or video recording transcript, or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. At that done, I'll call the meeting to order at five o'clock three p.m. and take a quick attendance. Hallie here, Gaston here, and I'm here. So that's three here with two absent. So we can begin and with our new adult use marijuana. And this meeting were just guest on has sent around or Steve send around something from Gaston on issues. Covering the agreements so I don't know if anyone guest on did you want to just kind of quickly. Sure happy to so great thanks. What I wanted to do was just kind of get a baseline of understanding of what these agreements have addressed that is potentially relevant for a license. So that's, I went through all the agreements and just try to basically name. And then include a sample clause from one of the agreements that that speak spoke to that issue. And so, I mean, Steve, can you share your understanding of what is going to happen to these agreements to kind of see where, where our room for action comes up. I believe the town manager is open to either paring them down to the minimum legal level or getting rid of them if there's a license that replaces it. Okay, okay. So I, I guess that maybe we can just look at the items on the list and share our thinking about which ones of these are most are the kind of thing that we would want to get into potentially. I, one quick question. Um, could we get a list of, I know it would be very confidential, what the payments have been to the town for each vendor because I'm just wondering like what the town is getting. You don't know if we were to set a set fee to like we do alcohol licenses, what that might be. I believe it's public so I can get that for you. Although I think this came up and then the one our licenses, I forget which one it is, but we are, you know, the, the municipal licensing is supposed to, you know, correlate to the reasonable costs incurred by doing that licensing. It's not just supposed to be set arbitrarily, but I do believe I can get that information for you. Well, so, so in these, in this case the, the, the, if we're talking about those community fees and they, and you'll see that they, they've been referred to with different names, but they're calculated based on a percentage. And I don't have the document in front of me because I'm driving but it's 3% 3% is it 3% of revenues, or I imagine revenues right. Gross revenue. Gross revenue. Yeah. So, I guess what if I'm based on Steve's comment what that suggests to me is that that should not be part of the license because we don't have the authority to, to charge a fee like that right. So that, that that would be something that should remain in a separate agreement with the town. If I'm on if, is that how you interpret this Steve. And I think there was a change in the state law recently, the state law changed concerning host community agreements and I think it required much stricter accounting and kind of, you know, kind of a description of how the costs are incurred. And I think at the beginning it was just that 3% flat fee but now I believe there's pretty strict limits based on you know what you know specifically articulable costs directly related to that so I think a lot of towns have seen their host community agreement revenue go down significantly with with that change. Oh, wow. Okay. So, in other words, that's the same principle that we're subject to is being extended to this income that the towns have been getting. More or less yeah so it's seeing a very significant drop in revenue because really there are not in most towns are really aren't that many articulable costs related to it. Okay, so. So, I mean, yes, certainly the numbers that would be useful for for for all for any, any, in any case, but it that that may not be where we can do very much. So, but but I guess the other side of it is depending on what we think is important. There might be costs involved in doing the kind of regulation that we think would be would be valuable. Certainly yeah. But I can try to get the pre and post change revenues coming in. I'm just curious, you know, what their pain compared to the spoke or something like that. It used to be very significant. I think this town still has Amherst those still have a significant amount of money from earlier HCA revenues that were earmarked for specific things but there hasn't really been much ability to find out what to do with it so. It's my understanding. Okay. Um, is it also would it also be relevant to get reports from public safety about what impact. If there has been any to the town. Yeah, can you do that that would be nice to have. So, so, from what I understand what we were just talking about the 3% of gross revenue fee has not changed in Amherst yet, or it is going to. It may still be in the host community agreements but I believe the state law change overrode that. So this whatever is in, okay, it's not relevant. Okay, any more. Yeah, I think that changed last fall or winter. Okay, so can we find out what that is. Yes, I can find out what the pre and post change revenues were. That would be great pre and post change revenues. Okay, so pre and post change revenues, public safety reports. Okay, so we want that information. And what else. Well, I mean, you know, besides collecting revenue these host community agreements did address a number of issues that seem pertinent to licensing and that I think are in the spirit of some of the ideas that that Doug was developing. And there's there's this commitment to hiring people who live in Amherst, and who, and to sourcing from vendors based in Amherst and, and then there's reporting requirements that I think are designed in part to pick up on that information that if that's one of the objectives of our of our licensing. Then, then we, I think can probably beef that up, although I think there's probably going to be some limits on, I don't think we can make like a requirement that they hire in town and so I'm not sure. I'm not sure how the policy lever works like I'm not sure how we. What's the nature of our capacity to push for that. Right. How would we get that info Steve is that does that a lawyer. What info what what the board could do. Yeah, if we if we can require these companies to hire in town. Yeah, that would be a good question for the lawyer. All right, so let's make a list of questions we want for the lawyer. So, questions. Hiring. So employment requirements. Interestingly, I, I didn't see that any of these agreements addressed, like the diversity of people hired or vendors so that I think that's an area that. There's an area potentially to, to look into. Okay. Yes, that is. So is that another that would be another lawyer question for time counseling. What can we, what can we do in the regulations and the license for that. So just say, employ that sort of like falls into employment requirements, right. What would you envision for that guest on like quotas or. Yeah, well, yeah, right. Exactly. I mean, how, what, what would it, how would that be. How would that be framed. I mean, I, I, the language that these agreements now have for hiring Amherst residents and sourcing from Amherst base vendors are just hordatory, right. And so I'm not sure that that, that, that we could or, or, or should do anything different than that. You know, it's been one of the bigger political issues in, in granting the dispensary rights, the effort to try to have minority owned businesses. And it's, you know, they've had very mixed success doing that. Okay. So what would you envision the board altering that because I know there's been a lot of trouble at the state level. But I don't think the board is envisioning like a limited number of licenses, right. There is limits built into zoning but the licensing would not be limited like, like alcohol so do you envision. So there couldn't really be preference because there wouldn't really be conflicts what would you envision guest on preference among. I mean, I was still, I was still thinking just in terms of adding to the principle of hiring locally. So, the principle of of trying to hire diversely as a as a goal is is what that's that's what I was having in mind just now. Okay, I can add that to the other question. Yeah, yeah. So sort of basically what we're allowed to what language we're allowed to use in the regulations and license surrounding employment. Who you can employ, is that correct. Like we'd like to do the diversity thing, but just figure out what we're allowed to do. We would like to do policy wise and we're also trying to understand what we can do. Right. And, you know, what we want to do policy wise is, is we can I think start getting start trying to identify the areas and then talk about it further when we've got the full board. Okay. Oh, Steve, is it possible to get from public safety kind of statistics of adult use marijuana versus alcohol. Just of terms of problems. Yeah, problems. Yeah, just sort of like a proportionally from the police and fire department. Yes, I can certainly do that. So no one with a liquor license pays a community impact fee right. No, all that stuff was kind of created. That was created for precedent for the for marijuana. Yeah. Okay. All right. So hiring tone residents, local vendors. And that kind of, let's see. Sorry, go ahead, Helen. It's just interesting the annual report. You don't get any of that from barbers or restaurants kind of. No, reserve number. You know, so that's an interesting thing to add. Yes. Yeah, it was created for, excuse me. Yes. There was a lot of stuff that was created for, for marijuana, you know, the host community agreements that never existed with alcohol. And I think there's a lot of concerns that time about what the impacts may be and things like that. And it could be a good time to review some of those and see if they're really still necessary. Yeah, I think, yeah. I mean, do you have the, I mean, just Paul or town council want to do away with the community host agreements and just go straight to a license. Paul is open to that. And so I guess we'll have to see, you know, there's another question for the lawyer if they can be entirely done away with her if they there are some statutory thing but in that case he'd be intent with kind of making those the de minimis meeting the statutory requirements and putting all the real regulation into licensing. Because I am impacts like, you know, the 3% versus a set fee, if he could do as part of the license of percentage. Well, I understand that the 3% is dead is my interpretation because that's the, the revenues of the business has no obvious correlation to the expense of to the town of regulating. In that case, a set fee might be, or is what we have to do. It seems it's it that's what I'm interpreting it. Are you seeing it the same way Steve. Yeah, that's would be my interpretation. You know, if we're going down this list, the, the, the reporting stuff is interesting but I'd say we kind of come back to that, based on what you know basically what we think is important that's what we're going to want them to report on to share as well as I never brought it up on the screen. You'll see that. What I what the, the manager stuff we're kind of used to that. And I don't think we have something that says it in the same words but I think we understand that if we wanted to we could call a manager to come to us. So that seems appropriate and not such a big deal. I thought that the marketing stuff was really interesting. And, and, and did seem to me like the kind of thing that we, we might wish to weigh in on although I haven't been aware of any marketing for the dispensaries apart from their physical locations I don't know about well and emails. I don't know about you all. No, I haven't seen anything. Yeah I haven't seen anything. But I do think the marketing is very interesting. It's also the town public health educational efforts. Company agrees to provide staff to participate in a reasonable number of town sponsored educational programs. I wonder if any if a single such program has been organized. Yeah, I think there's been some in the schools but I, if I remember correctly there's kind of a real lack of anything like that. Anything like that with any real demonstrated value. So wait, so that how am I reading this stuff said they're supposed to provide programs to the schools or they're supposed to take part in programs, which educate the staff of these places. I think it's that that's what the host community impacts funds were supposed to go to our year mark for. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay, can we find out if there have been any, any of these Steve. Yeah, I can. Okay, that would be good. And let's see tone. It's, I mean, it's what the other thing that's interesting to me is just thinking about ideas about what might be relevant for alcohol that that we haven't been doing. Yes. Well, I think the name manager and a time frame for replacing a manager that departs is something are pretty. And also some set violation ranges kind of to give guidance amount in any sort of violation for any of these dispensaries. Not to my knowledge now. Okay, so yeah, that's a good point. And make sure that we're like what we have we have change of manager we have violation. I mean we'd use the same when they came to apply for the license we'd use the sort of the same procedure I'm assuming right. Makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, like, like it's very nice to kind of kind of go through all these and this is really great but if we were kind of just set up a series of meetings like I'm thinking about the next time we meet. Like what do we want to start working on first, do we want to start working on like the guest on you says you know the principles behind it, or do you think it's better to talk about the mechanics or. Okay, so I mean my, I guess what I would suggest is that what we can, what we can do today is identify what we think is potentially interesting here for an irrelevant for a license. It's been, we've started creating our list of questions, and then we should, you know, try to make try to make sure Doug can be at the next meeting of, you know, I guess in two weeks. And then we can we can kind of debrief Doug, and then try to kind of weave it in with the ideas that he had come up with and see where that ends up. Like what are the, what's the list of points that we think a license should cover based on what these agreements have been doing. And what other things Doug had been thinking of and kind of start from there that's so I guess if for today we, we can be prepared at the start of the next meeting to say, we think XYZ and J points from these agreements are things that we should definitely consider, including in a license. And hear from Doug and Dylan hopefully and, and then kind of consolidate with the stuff that that Doug was thinking about, and then have one list of items to be talking through and figuring out where we where we stand from a policy point of review and, and then I guess, at that point we can send off a list of questions to the attorney I think you know today we can write them down but maybe it's premature to send them until we have a more exhaustive list and talk to the other members of the team. Okay, so all right. So we know we're interested in some some kind of something surrounding employment policies right. So we know, I think we should consider I think we should definitely talk about that and because that that was something pretty standard and all of these agreements. Right. So even if what we're saying is that we don't think we should get into that. That's kind of a policy decision that I think we should actively make. Okay, all right. So we have. I think that's good. I think the, the town, the public health educational efforts, I think our, we should definitely consider. And to like the impact payments. I guess we're going to figure out exactly what they are and whether or not we, like how much we're getting from them this year. What else. Well the, the other items on here are our, I guess, things that I would put under the umbrella of public safety we've got kind of police related and fire department related. And this town, town diversion. I understand what time diversion means the dispensary cannabis ending up in other people's hands I take it that that's what they're talking about right. I believe so yeah. Yeah. Public safety, those public safety matters are I think are definitely important in a license and so we've got starting points in these agreements is how I'm seeing it. Okay. And, and, Mary, and just to kind of follow through on your question about process. I think that when as a board we've been able to say, you know what, we think these are the eight or 10 things that should be in a license, then we would want to get these dispensaries to, to give us feedback and the public at large. I would think right. Oh yeah, definitely. So we want to keep that. Okay. Okay. Good, good. So, is there anything else in here that we want to talk about right now in this list. I mean, we have our so we have we have the. So Steve, you're going to get the stats on public safety. Yep, I'll look for the public safety diversion diversion education programs funded and the pre and post change and the host community agreement revenues. Great. Thank you. And we're going to hold off on questions the lawyer until we talk to everybody else. And we have a more comprehensive list, correct. I think that makes sense. Yeah. Okay. I have a quick question just given Doug's new job. And I think I won't be here at next meeting. Okay colleges massage but um, if there's a time on a regularly scheduled meeting that it's light that might be a yeah. Yeah, I, yeah, I agree maybe that I wonder if we can get this on the next agenda. Just the debrief part anyway. Yeah, well, certainly on that and related issue. I could really just leave it on the standard agendas to the time being and if we get to it if there's no updates and there's no update and also I have spoken to some people about a subcommittee and I believe that would be possible and the big advantage of that would be this no form requirements. So, I will get some more firm information about how to set that up but we could potentially start doing that. I think we have two weeks from now. I think the board will have to take a vote to establish that but that'll ease the pressure a little bit. Okay, great. That would be really good. Well, maybe we could just take a minute to think about if the items on this list make us think of anything else. Or thinking about how we regulate alcohol sales is there something else that we would want to, you know, get on the discussion list. So this is all, I mean, this is, you're talking about like an off premises, because there's no, obviously there's no, yeah, yeah, right, right. So, because I'm just thinking, so we don't because we like for a short term we required, we need to know who the district, right the distributor is, but we don't know where this is coming from necessarily. I mean, do we know the same for, we don't know the same for off premises right, Steve, like, no, yeah, we just it just kind of, all right. Well, they mean they have to go through this whole state regulated I mean that's got stuff controlled by the ABCC ABCC anyway. And in this case, there was also the CCC kind of covering all of these stuff, these things do so. Okay, all right. But I mean it'll be just thinking about alcohol and this is maybe slightly I've talked about it'll be interesting to hear what the results are of the public safety impact verse of marijuana versus alcohol. Everything I've heard is that it's been basically nil. Yeah. Although, I don't know how much there is for off premises licenses either in Amherst anyway. Right. And but I can get data to confirm that. Okay. The only thing I've heard are some neighbors who twice have had to take their dogs to get to the vet after they've consumed babysitters stashes. Oh my gosh. It's not really human impact. Right. Let me just let stuff around they cashed it or they had it in their bag. The dog. Two big colleagues can reach a lot. Oh my gosh. So, I mean there is left their bag out or somebody put it down for a second or Yeah, she was dog sitting and, you know, left her dog bag out. Oh, I think you meant this outside of store. Okay. Oh yeah. Oh no, out of house out of house. Sorry. Yeah. Community impact. Is there anything else that anyone's guessed on that you see or Halle that you see, or you can think of about the alcohol license that. I mean, do we require don't require like a on the license there's something like a background check or a history of employment is that required for this one. Not for the community agreement, but no. Okay. But I mean that is something we could potentially put in. I think Yeah, I mean it'd be good to get a kind of more in alignment in alignment with the alcohol regulations. Yeah, I agree. I think we're trying to kind of Frankenstein the alcohol regulations and these host community agreements and then just kind of giving it our policy spin. Yeah. And I don't have trying to think of what else from that alcohol license that we could use. I mean certainly if there's a hearing hearing process will include that. Yeah, I think that'll be the biggest thing and I think the biggest thing that this product that this adaptation can get us is, is the ability to kind of do that kind of you know, the response to two problems that occur the host community agreements aren't responsive at all. I mean their contracts they can't there's no provision to revoke them or have penalties or anything I think that'll be the biggest the biggest benefit and I think I think with the behindside a lot of what it was in the host community agreements will be kind of either duplicative of state regulations or unnecessary, you know, over caution at the time they were drafted. Okay. All right. So, let's say so that the history of employment hearing process violations fees stemming from violations. Anything else. Hi. We lost you. My phone like got onto some Wi-Fi couldn't connect to it for some reason but I was wondering, I know that there's very strict rules about like the medical versus the adult the adult use. Okay, and my question is whether we understand that that's all covered by state regulation and not something that we would need to get into. I mean, in other words, like the dispensaries that serve both medical and non medical customers have to have, you know, clear segregation of counters and stuff like that and my question is whether that's something that we could or would need to address. I'm not really experts about that stuff and I think it's covered by state law but I'm, that's a question I'm asking I guess. So, so do we, would we issue a license for a medical one or just for an adult use one. I think that's a question we could both ask the lawyers if we can require a license for the medical and then a policy issue of if we want to. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's a good question. Okay, I assume that in kind of displacing these host community agreements, we would have to be also covering the medical but I, but I am ignorant about that. Yeah, I don't know. Right. They're not a list. I believe they have to have host community agreements as well but that's another thing that we could take a look at and say is this is it really you know necessary to license them maybe maybe not. Okay. Or maybe different fee sketch fee structure different requirements I think that's, they're all good questions. Another item actually is is delivery. Right, which is, I guess, something that I'm not aware of any Amherst dispensaries doing. And I guess, I'm not aware of any liquor stores doing either. So I can answer that for the medical or then sorry the marijuana and what the state law prescribes is that the there is a special state license type for a delivery based service and they can just deliver. I don't want to say by right but with the license no matter where they're located they can deliver to anywhere. Any town that voted more than 50% yes for the referendum. And Amherst voted more than 50% yes so the Amherst could regulate the ones that are based in Amherst I don't believe there are any I think it's prohibited by zoning still, but they couldn't regulate just delivery operations going into Amherst. Okay, so, okay. So something in like Northampton or wherever. I would assume a lot of them are just going to kind of congregate and you know, the chickapee Worcester places places on highway interchanges and probably scale up pretty quickly I don't know exactly where that stands in terms of the business but that's why I would assume is it'll probably pretty quickly scale up but there isn't any located in Amherst anyway and the town I don't believe could regulate just just delivering to Amherst as opposed to based in Amherst. All right, that's good to know. So that's something we don't have to worry about right now. Unlike liquor stores I don't believe the dispensaries can just do that by virtue of their normal license I think they have to have that that additional license as well. Okay. Anything else here or from our standard off premises license that we may want to consider. I don't have anything else on my mind. Anything else. Okay, helly anything else. No, okay. I would maybe just touch on order. Yes, which could be a factor for the, you know, any kind of production facilities or research facilities maybe or this this micro businesses I believe there's a micro business that was licensed Amherst although I don't think it's, it's an operating company that hasn't had any work recently done to it. It may have just been kind of canceled but we haven't heard anything but I think that's something that could create a local impact that the state law wouldn't really cover and I don't know how you would objectively govern and control order surprise site visit or something but that's something that could affect a butters. Okay. Right. All right, the butters notice, notice. This could be good. Yeah, butters notices included. Okay. So we have a wall that's a lot of stuff that we've got. So we're going to put this on the agenda for next week. Is that right Steve. Yeah, I'll leave it as a standing item item. Okay. I'll look into establishing a subcommittee there might be a vote the board has to take at the next meeting. Okay, we'll look into how that's done. Okay. And then hopefully we'll bring Doug and Dylan up to speed at next week and then are we going to keep the meeting for. What are we on today from the eighth. We talk about it next week and decide. Yeah, yeah. And then because it would be the 23rd. Okay. And then we have a lot of things, ideas for the license pulled from this list and from the off premises alcohol, all this alcohol license and then we can go through Doug's list as you suggest Doug's draft regulations as you suggested Gaston. Okay. And just kind of figure it all out. So, so next week we'll bring Doug and Dylan up to speed correct. Yeah, start talking some more Steve you will get the statistics and we'll continue compiling a list for the lawyer does that sound good. And one other thing I would just put in your ear is, I think, you know, board should probably think about whether they want to do cover all potential license types with these regulations or just the ones that exist for now might be a bit much to chew off, you know, strafing up regulations for cafes and things like that in the first draft but at the very least, you know, we could make notes about what we think about that kind of regulation and maybe pass a first draft with just the existing license types but but make it expandable to cover other license types as well. Oh, I think so. Yeah, just the way it's just in the way it's structured and then also keep in mind there are other license types that are allowed like micro businesses and Okay, I know that one is for sure but I think there's dispensary medical micro business that are certainly allowed in Amherst and those may require different different touches. These are ABCC licenses, correct. So micro businesses. CCC but yeah, see oh sorry CCC CCC so micro business medical dispensary. Are those the only two are there others. There are, if you give me a second, I think they're all covered in our zoning by law. But I know there's, I'll just go to the list. So there's a medical marijuana treatment center. There is offsite medical marijuana dispensary recreational marijuana retailer, those the ones probably will have the focus of the focus of craft marijuana cultivator cooperative and marijuana cultivator. Those may be two separate but combined in our zoning by law independent marijuana testing laboratory marijuana product manufacturer marijuana micro business marijuana transporter marijuana research facility I want a social consumption operation or social club and delivery only retailer. Wow, okay. There's a list. That's a lot. Okay. Well, okay. And as of now delivery only retailer social consumption. And that's it are the two that are completely forbidden in Amherst for now and all the rest of them are allowable by special permit in various zones. Okay. All right. Yes, we should probably craft these to cover all potential license types and think about the social consumption and delivery, even if it doesn't seem likely to happen and Dylan did a lot of work on the club stuff so he'd be helpful with that. Yeah, I think it. Probably not likely in the short term but right say maybe inevitable in the longer term so yeah, the very least maybe we could set it up with you know general regulations for all all businesses and yeah, however, stricter or lenient that may be and then more detailed for for each of the sub categories. Right, maybe they might need specific right specific regulation. Well, we should prepare for all contingencies I suppose from. Okay, I would think probably just and yeah probably make sense to do the first draft of just, just the existing ones and then do this, you know work on the other ones after, after the first draft is passed and adopted but. All right, sounds great. Sounds good. I will also ask the lawyer what what the town council would have to do to authorize this. The authority for the license commission. Okay, that would be good. Thank you. Anything else on this any other questions. Or not. Now I do want to thank you Gaston for getting this document together. Yeah, this was great. It's really useful. Thank you. Okay, no, my pleasure. Steve, thanks for for taking the time. Okay. All right, so our first meeting on this topic is, I guess we're done unless anyone has anything else to say. Motion to adjourn. Before that second that I will just ask, would, would, would you like me to set up to put a agenda item on the next meeting to establish a subcommittee if that's possible. What do you guys think. Subcommittee. I, yeah, I mean, I, you know, I think that it's useful to have a committee of the whole so to speak to canvas ideas and figure out how we feel. And the next phase of work. A subcommittee can be more effective. Right. I think the big benefit will be I don't believe there's a three person form requirements. So, right. Okay, that would be great. All right, good. So let's do that. All right, so is there a second to adjourn. Thanks, Hallie. Take a vote guest on. I, Hallie. And I vote I that is three to zero with two absent were adjourned at 546 PM. Thanks everybody. Thank you Steve so much. Thanks. Thank you all very much. See you next week. Enjoy the smoke goes away. I'm seeing blue.