All right, we are both naming and recording. Great. All right. I'll get this going then. My name is James Pepper. I'm the chair of the Vermont Cannabis Control Board. Today is March 14, 2022, and I will call this meeting to order. The big news, of course, is that our pre-qualification window opens this Wednesday at 9 a.m. I just wanted to make a few quick points about this. Reiterate that this process is voluntary. It is not required if you're going to seek an operational license. We believe that there are many benefits to prospective licensees. However, this is an extra step. There are nonrefundable fees associated with this process. Just to be absolutely clear, the pre-qualification does not give you the authority to start operating. Everyone has to make their own decision in this, but pre-qualification, from my perspective, is probably not for anyone who intends to apply on April 1. Let me just explain that in a little bit greater detail why I say that. The board, despite having submitted a letter to the FBI seeking authorization to receive fingerprints in the form that's required by our state law, we still haven't been authorized to receive those fingerprints. This authorization could be approved any day now. We've been waiting for quite a while, and we are being a squeaky wheel with the FBI about this. The consequence of that is that anyone who seeks pre-qualification will have to resubmit fingerprints when they're applying for their final operational license. Just given this short window between the opening of pre-qualification on March 16 and April 1 when small cultivators and testing facilities and the integrated licenses, when that window opens, the board, it's possible, may not be even to be able to process your pre-qualification application in that kind of short window. Everyone should just look at our timelines, look at our windows, do what makes the most sense for you as a small business owner, but just wanted to reiterate that this process does come with multiple sets of fingerprints, multiple sets of fees. Just a few other, just to summarize some of the questions that we've been receiving. The application for pre-qualification will be available on our website. That's how you enter it. We will have the ability to download and submit a paper copy of the application. However, it's much smoother process on our end if you just complete it through the website. One thing, everyone who is a principal of your business needs to fill out the form separately. So anyone who has a kind of controlling interest or is an affiliate or has 10% or more control over your company or financial interest needs to fill out this form. The payment. So we will have kind of an online way to pay the fee. There's a $500 non-refundable fee that will be credited to your eventual application fee, meaning if you're pre-qualified and you decide to move forward within operational license, that $500 fee will be credited towards your eventual application fee. There's one important caveat about the fee. So the authority to charge this $500 fee, pre-qualification fee, exists in our cannabis fee bill H-701. This bill has now passed both chambers of the legislature, but it still has a few steps left before it becomes a law. And that means that we're not authorized to charge this fee or collect this fee at this time. So the plan is to allow people to submit their applications without the fee. But the board will ask that you do pay the fee prior to us actually granting your pre-qualification. So please don't try and send us any money at this point. And we will be in touch with anyone who applies for pre-qualification before we issue your pre-qualification approval about payment of the fee. And again, that will be done online through our website. The last point around social equity applicants and the fee. At this point, there are no fee waivers for social equity applicants who seek to pre-qualify. And the reason is is that the board at this stage of our application process is not making the determination as to whether someone qualifies as a social equity applicant. H-701, our fee bill does give the board the authority to reduce and waive fees for social equity applicants. We are looking into a process that would credit this money, this $500 pre-qualification fee to future payments that are owed to the board. But for now, the short answer is that all people who seek to pre-qualify will have to pay the $500 fee. And then I know that there are lots of questions. I know that, you know, we've been fielding questions here at the board since we announced this process. We do have a lot of good information on our website at ccb.vermont.gov slash pre-qualify. That has kind of the basic outline of the process. And it also links to other websites that have additional information about fingerprinting and, you know, about what it means to be a controlling interest or an affiliate. So I would urge people to kind of start there if they have questions. Again, that's ccb.vermont.gov slash pre-qualify. If you have questions beyond that, just please keep in mind that, you know, our staff has not increased since we started. And so it's really just a handful of people here that are trying to respond to these questions. And, but if you do, I would first suggest that you email your question or questions to ccb.info at vermont.gov. And that will allow Nellie to kind of collect commonly asked questions, post them to our website, but also get back to people kind of when they all have the same question kind of group those and get back to them collectively. Also, we do have a phone hard line here at the cannabis board. So if you have a question that hasn't been kind of answered through either of those two steps, you can always call us<PHONE_NUMBER>. And you'll be prompted to kind of through a phone tree to hit option zero for the adult rec market. And again, you know, our phones do ring pretty frequently and there's only a very small number of people that can answer them. So please leave a message and again, we'll be back in touch. So that phone number<PHONE_NUMBER> option zero. With that, I think we'll just move to the agenda. Well, have Julie and Kyle, have you had a chance to review the minutes from March 7th meeting? Yes. Okay. Will I take a motion to approve those minutes? So moved. Seconded. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Great. Then moving on through the agenda, today we need to adopt some rules and, you know, they've made it through the Elkar process. Maybe David, if you wouldn't mind, I'll turn things over to you just to kind of give an update on how that went and what the next steps are. Sure. So Elkar reviewed rules, board rules one and two, the proposed rules one and two over two meetings actually one in late February and one last Thursday morning. And last Thursday morning, they did vote to approve both rules one and two. And they are now ready after the board votes today to be adopted by the board. Once the board votes on that adoption, they will have the force of law or full-fledged regulation, let's say, two weeks after that, or sorry, 15 days after that date. So that takes us to March 24th. Well, let me not say that. That takes us to March 29th, assuming that there's no issues with the filing today. So they'll be ready just in time for applications to be full, I should say full-license applications to be considered. Great. So anything more that we need to say about rules one and two? No, there are a few very technical changes that happened during the Elkar process, but certainly nothing substantive. I think the only thing that I would note out loud because it will change how we refer to things is that the legislature decided to flip our order of manufacturing tiers to make it consistent with the cultivator tiers. So the smallest tier is one and the biggest tier is three. The smallest tier is the home-based product manufacturer. Tier two remains the same. Tier three is the result-based extraction methods. That's exactly right. And so, you know, statute always controls over the rules. So since they passed it that way, during the Elkar process, we shifted around our rule to match the statute. So from now on, tier one is the smallest manufacturer, tier three is the biggest manufacturer, and hopefully we'll get used to saying that soon. Okay. Great. So is there a motion that we need in order to formally adopt these rules? I would, yeah, move to formally adopt the board's proposed rules one and two. Someone that can make that motion. Move to adopt, formally adopt rules one and two? Seconded. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Great. Okay. Exciting. Yeah. Great work and great work on the timing of that, too. Obviously, I think we may have set a record on passing. It's got to be close. Yeah. Four months and four days to the day. Yeah. Thank you for all your hard work. So I see on the agenda that we need to adopt rule three as an emergency rule. Bren, would you mind just describing why that is or what the purpose of the emergency rule is? Sure. So as we all know, Act 164 had some pretty wacky timelines in it. And one of those was that Title 18 statutes and the DPS rule that govern the medical program were set to expire on March 1st and did expire on March 1st. Title seven has a new set of statutes governing the medical program and those took effect on March 1st. But the DPS rule governing the program expired. And because rule three, which is the rule governing the medical program that the board developed is still working through the rulemaking process, there is currently not an administrative rule in place that is effectively governing the medical program. So the board's strategy was to speak to legislatively delay that expiration date for both the Title 18 statutes and the DPS rule. And that would have both provided LCAR time and the board time to complete the rulemaking process on the board's rules. And given everything else that's going on, it would have given the board staff a little additional time to develop guidance on what the differences are between the Title 17, the Title 7 and the Title 18 statutes and the difference between the DPS rule and the new board rule. But as of March 1st, the statutes and the rule have expired, so this is really no longer a viable strategy. So as a result, instead, what we're going to do is to file board rules two, three, and four as emergency rules. And the plan is to do that tomorrow. And as a reminder, those are the rules that govern the regulation of cannabis establishments, which will include the dispensaries, the medical program, and then the compliance and enforcement rule. And as David just mentioned, once those rules are filed as emergency rules, they will become effective immediately. So if they are filed tomorrow, they will become effective tomorrow. Our staff is going to be developing some guidance regarding the implications of this shift. And we'll post that guidance prominently. Ready. And then, so rules two, three, and four will be adopted as emergency rules. They'll be effective immediately upon filing. If there are changes made to rules three and four through the Elkar process, maybe those become effective. When the final rule becomes effective. So there's still the ability to make changes to those through the Elkar process, if need be. That's right. Yes. Great. So David, would you help us with a motion on... I know we just voted to adopt rule two. So yeah, just a tiny bit more context for the board. Rule two will only be in operation as an emergency rule for two weeks. Right. Because then it'll become a real final rule on the 29th. And then three and four will be an emergency operation for... It's a bit of a guess because it depends on how fast Elkar acts, but probably like a month or so. And then those will also become final rules. And so yeah, for this purpose, I would say do a motion to adopt board's proposed rules two, three, and four on an emergency basis. Is that applied to rule two as well? It does because rule two is not yet. So even when we filed an adoption paper for finalizing rule two today, it will not have the force of regulation for 15 more days. And because rule three depends on rule two in order to be fully fleshed out, it makes sense. We need to have rule two in actual operation in order for rule three to function. Okay. And then the motion is moved to adopt rules. Board's proposed rules two, three, and four as an emergency rule. Is effective immediately or upon adoption? Yeah, Julie has a question. Can you just explain why it doesn't apply to rule one as well? Because rule one, we really don't need rule one for rule three to work. I suppose it's... Yeah, it's just not as integral to how rule three operates. Okay. And if there is any issue with somebody trying to apply to create a new dispensary, we will deal with that as it arises. And that may require a board meeting to deal with it. But I think for now, the basic operation of the medical system only requires rules two, three, and four. Okay. Thank you. I've got another question. Just pre-qualification require rule one to be adopted. I think we've been operating under the assumption that pre-qualification is essentially just the board getting information on its own discretion to learn more about the licensees. We're not actually licensing anything. So we don't need an authority to gather that information. Great. Okay. Well, is there any other questions for David? Nope. So would someone like to make that motion that we've discussed? I'll make the motion. Would you remind me? I need to say again, move to adapt the board's proposed final rules two, three, and four on an emergency basis. I'll move to adapt the board's rules two, three, and four on an emergency basis. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Great. Okay. Well, then again, great work on all of that. Thank you for the explanation there. And next on the agenda review of social equity and background check guidance. Julie, I think you might have been doing some work on this. It might have a presentation for us. I do. I have some slides. I thought that it would be easiest rather than showing the whole document to just show the parts where we actually need to have discussion. And make decisions. So let me try and share this. Can you see my slides? Yes. Okay. Cool. All right. So if it's okay with you, we'll start with criminal background check and record check because that's my first slide. So just to kind of remind us all that this is included in law. As you can see here on the slide and the purpose, our purpose as a board is to determine whether or not an applicant should be denied a cannabis establishment license because his or her criminal record demonstrates that there's a threat to public safety or the proper functioning of the regulated market. I've also listed all the rules that we, where we addressed this. It's in a couple of different places. So I just wanted to kind of set the table there. And then so, you know, in lieu of sharing like the whole document, this is the outline of what's included in the guidance that I've written. So, you know, introduction, pretty standard things, kind of the important definitions. And then kind of going through what needs to be provided, who needs to be provided and how to provide it. And so what I'll do is I'll go through those sections and the pieces that we need to need to discuss. So the first one is that in our guidance, it'll say that, you know, record checks are done by partner agencies and that because we're asking folks to provide additional information such as information on administrative action or civil cases, which is they're not likely to show up in a criminal background check that will probably contact the agencies that have that information. So if there's like OPR, for example, if someone has a license and they're saying that they have that license and it's in good standing or if they say that that license has been revoked, we're likely, we may contact the appropriate agency to verify the information that's given on the application. Does that seem right to you all? Yes. Then the next piece that I think maybe requires a little bit more discussion is what's required in the criminal history information. So you can see here this is essentially what's in our rule with a little bit of extra explanation. So, you know, the criminal criminal action, which is backed up and supported usually by the criminal background check, any civil actions, administrative actions, and then any disciplinary action against a license, registration or certification. I've clarified for the for the licenses, registrations and certifications what that kind of means and just given some examples there. Going back to the administrative action and the civil action. Here's where I think I need the help of my colleagues. Civil action administrative action can be a lot of things. So I think that there are some there's some maybe direction that we can give in guidance so that the information that's being provided to us by applicants is really just what we need and not maybe the whole detailed universe of what can be included in a civil action. You know, because that could be, you know, a standard uncontested divorce or it could be your neighbor put their fence two feet over your property line. All of that is included, but there are also some more business related civil actions that we may actually need more information about. So I'm thinking in guidance, it'll be helpful to ask the right questions. And I think I'm looking to my colleagues who know better more about this to kind of guide me as to what would be the types of questions about civil actions and administrative actions that we want people to specifically address when they're describing them thoughts feelings. So you have a little bit deeper understanding of HR related issues. Are there standard questions that people ask like that might be along the lines of any civil action that's relevant to the like proper functioning of the market or that might be relevant to your employment. So is there like boiler play language somewhat similar to that that kind of tries to narrow the scope of this. The only thing I can think of with civil action administrative action is maybe something that would come up in a police background check. You know, for someone who's applying to be a police officer, otherwise it's generally just a criminal background check. So civil actions and administrative actions aren't necessarily considered as it relates to employment. In the general sense, like somebody applying to be a teacher or something like that, that's a fingerprint supported criminal background check and it may not show, you know, a general civil action. In general, for civil action, you know, from an HR perspective, I would say what what information do I actually need. And then what am I going to do with it. And then based on the decision that I'm going to make, will it impact how I make that decision. So, you know, we might want to ask more specific questions about, you know, and help me with the words that are appropriate for civil action. You know, did your civil action result in, you know, because things can also change from civil to criminal, right? Can't they can't they depending on the severity. Yes. I mean, if someone hasn't been paying their taxes, or they've been embezzling, there, there could be, there could be criminal actions taken and there could be civil action seeking and not necessarily both. All right. So I think, I think what I'll do is, is try to add some additional questions here about the civil action so that people address like we'll say, you know, in the description, please address, you know, that maybe the result of the civil action is, is what's revealing to us. Yeah, it seems to me like, again, we should just tie this back to the FinCEN guidance because it's really those are the cores, the core principles that we need to, you know, just so we don't run into trouble with the federal government. You know, I mean, that's really what we're getting at. We're not trying to go beyond that. We're trying to kind of limit our inquiry to those principles. So maybe we can kind of, again, look at our, what we're requiring from a criminal perspective in rule 1.11 and try and tie some of these civil action adjudications to those kind of core tenants. Okay. So I'll take that information and kind of turn those into questions for this. Okay, so then the next piece that I think we need to chat about is. I've suggested in the guidance that applicants can provide information and writing on the application or request to provide it verbally to the board. And the reason why I've suggested this is because not everyone communicates well and writing and there may leave out important information just by, you know, not communicating well and writing. And I've added a note here that we would do that. We would hear that in executive session if it is the board that's going to hear it. Maybe it's staff that we're going to have here at first, but if it's the board that's going to hear it that we would do that in executive session and that, you know, we can go into executive session, but certainly we open every meeting in open session, a public session. So there is a limit to how private we can keep someone's attendance at a meeting. Yeah. So are you both with doing both in writing and request to provide the information verbally? Yes, absolutely. I wonder if it has to be to the board at all or if it could be to staff and staff makes like our licensing staff and then they make a recommendation to the board. Yeah. Yeah, that was going to be my question as well. That would definitely address the confidentiality issue. All right. So then the next piece is the record check in the application process. So I've said that when we're reviewing the information and I've tied it back to law that we need to be considering, you know, information that indicates whether or not the individual presently poses a threat to public safety or the proper functioning of the regulated market. And that if there are discrepancies and I have run into this before where there's a discrepancy in the background check, the criminal background check and what somebody puts on an application. Sometimes that is an intentional discrepancy. Sometimes it's an accident. Sometimes it's, you know, it's an error in the record. So I've put here that we would if there's a discrepancy that we would notify the applicant and then we would provide a copy of the background check to the to the person on request. The way we're doing the background checks now for the pre qualification folks are providing that to us. And we'll be aware that it's coming to us and when because they'll have to provide it to us. But in the future, when we're doing this through the FBI, generally once they submit the OK that we can do that background check, they get no other information. It all would come to the board. So this would be an opportunity to allow people to clear up discrepancies. And then I've also said here that if an applicant is not qualified, we would also provide them a copy of their their background check on request. But that could get complicated. And what yeah. I only because, you know, there's lots of there's a very interconnected web of federal state law and rules that that govern the transmission of criminal history records. And us thinking that we can just send them to an individual might require some discussion with, you know, the VCIC. I know that, you know, when when the courts kind of shut down. During the pandemic, there was a lot of discussion about how do we get criminal history records of the state's attorneys were collecting over to the defendant and it was incredibly complicated. And so I just. Us. I mean, I don't mind us transmitting the information to the person verbally or, you know, I just putting it that we will provide a copy of that will is essentially we shall provide a copy. And it might not be as simple as just, you know, emailing them a copy of it. Okay, in employment for the Fair Credit Reporting Act, when you take an adverse action and don't hire someone, you are required to send them a copy of the background check along with some other documents. So although we are not held to those same rules in this, you know, for these purposes, but it is it is done in other areas. So maybe maybe VCIC can just give us some guidance on, you know, what other entities do. It seems to me like we could convey the discrepancy, you could certainly kind of explain the discrepancy and seek further information request more information from the applicant. It's just the the idea that we have to provide the actual record could open us up some liability. Okay, it doesn't it. If we convey it verbally, can we convey enough information that they can correct their record if it's an error? I mean, I think we can even convey it if written, you know, I just it's the actual sending of the actual record that I think is where we might be, we might need some further guidance from our VCIC. Okay. And just to be clear, we would be sending it to what I'm suggesting anyway is to send it to the affected individual like we wouldn't be sending record to the applicant. If that was not the person whose record had a discrepancy would be just sending it to the the affected individual. That's right. No, I understand that it's just, you know, you need to have a secure portal. And if that and if that's not a possibility, then sending it through the mail makes me people are nervous, making copies of it makes me nervous. And deciding what to redact. Yeah, I just I just don't like the idea we were required. I mean, I know this is a policy document or guidance document but it's does have that kind of expect it sets up the expectation that we're going to do this. So you'd be more comfortable with me. We may send it on request. Like, you know, if there are substantial discrepancies that we shall notify the applicant in kind of detail as to what those discrepancies are. And, you know, you could say we may provide a copy, but I think we always have that authority we don't need to spell it out necessarily. And then we can work on whether or not we can send it send it to them in the meantime. And like the idea of transparency here as to why and being able to give folks that information. But yeah, I think we want to make sure we know what we're up against before we require ourselves to do so just from a logistical procedural perspective and how much time it might take our staff, which is pretty right and underwater already to be able to do that. The board will communicate the discrepancies to the individual at the end of that first sentence and then leave it open as to exactly how it's going to happen. And again, just employers are required to send a copy of the record if they take adverse action. So anyone, for example, who's working in like childcare or applies for childcare and something comes back on their record and they can't work in that. You do have to send a record with the notice. It is possible. I don't I'm not disputing that it's possible. I just don't know what the process is going to be and whether we need to maybe expand the scope of our secure portal or something along those lines. Okay. You know how it happens elsewhere. Is it is it mailed? Is it emailed? Is it like a link to a secure portal? No, I've always mailed it. Okay. Because I feel like the VCIC has always come to me in the mail. The fingerprint supporter has always come to me in the mail or it's been a third party entity and so it had to be mailed. So I will make those changes and then as we sort of move forward, we can, you know, we can always update this whenever we like. It's not easy. Was there a third thing that was highlighted on that previous slide? Is there a third? There is. So it was the if there's a discrepancy and then if an applicant is not qualified. So if we deemed someone not to be qualified, I imagine that we would follow the same process for both of those things, discrepancies and not qualified. Great. Thanks. Thanks, Julie. You're welcome. And then when something in the record changes, that's addressed in guidance as well. So we've said in our rules that folks have a duty to disclose changes in their record. And that, you know, should what I've what I've included here, I didn't highlight it. I apologize for that right after that highlighted piece. It says that if the application is pending that they should contact the board. So what I what I think I understand is that at some point when somebody submits the their completed application, it will go into some sort of pending status. So if something changes in during that pending status, they'll have to contact our office to notify us of any changes. Otherwise, I think we'll probably have a system for notifying of changes kind of outside of the licensing period. But I think that while it's in that pending status, there may be something that's a little bit more manual that has to happen. So that's why that piece is in there. Yeah, that looks good. Okay. And then we can move on. We want to put time that obviously like we didn't put timeframes in our rules. Do we want to try and kind of put timeframes here? We want to use a kind of catch all turn on like to make timely disclosures about changes the record or like as soon as reasonably possible. Yeah, it's a reasonable timeframe. Yeah, I mean, this is where we could write something and it wouldn't necessarily be totally binding, but we could just give people some understanding of what we think is a is a timely period. Yes, I think so. And I think we also maybe want to be clear about at what point in their process, and maybe we address this in rule and I'm just forgetting, but, you know, if somebody is arrested and charged but not yet convicted of a criminal offense at what point did we address in rule and I'm sorry if I'm forgetting right now, but at what point we need to be notified. I don't believe we address that in our role other than I think that that would be considered a change to the record and arrest and charge. Just okay. All right. So I think I'll leave that part just changes because that's the most open catch all word for this, I think. Okay. Do we think within 30 days is is adequate? No. And again, this would be kind of a guidance document. It wouldn't necessarily mean that if someone doesn't do it within 30 days that we have to kind of take an administrative action against them. I think within 30 days is probably fine. Outside of the licensing period, I think we want to know soon because we may process will process license is faster than that. Right, I assume, maybe, or we will be in the middle of processing a license. So I think we would want to know if the record changes while someone's in that pending status as soon as possible. So then as soon as reasonably possible. Yeah, as opposed to a timeframe. That's what I'm thinking. Yes. Okay. Anything else on the background check guidance that I maybe missed or should be in here. No, I think this looks really good, Julie. Thanks for the work on this. Yeah, thank you. You are welcome. So we'll move on to the social equity guidance. And I'll do the same thing. So I just, you know, for the purposes of clarity, I've included, you know, the pieces of Act 62 that apply and where in our rules it is and then also sort of the outline for the guidance. You know, defining what a social equity applicant is and then, you know, how to provide documents and what documents to provide how to apply. So just to give you the language that I've used in guidance to describe social equity individual applicant, I think you can see this here. I don't think you need me to read it for you. And it's the same as in rule just looks a little different. And then the social equity business applicant is also here. And then I did not add any additional guidance other than we might ask for additional information if it's necessary about how to provide or how to demonstrate 51% ownership. And that's because I think in large part that'll be evident from the regular application. So documents required for Vermont residency. So these are also already outlined. And then I've just these highlighted sections are where I've added a little bit more information. For example, on the utility bill to say that the name on the bill must match the applicant's name and that it must be a residential address in Vermont. So someone couldn't use, for example, the utility bill for their business address to demonstrate Vermont residency unless they are one in the same. And then I outlined the types of things that might be considered other government documents and I used the same or some of the same information that schools look for for demonstrating residency for public school. That look good to everybody. Yeah. And then in terms of how to apply so for people who are lack or Hispanic Americans, I think the best way to do this is to have them to a test on the application. And then for those who are incarcerated, I think we'll get some of that in from depending, we might get some of that information on the criminal background check. But that information may not specifically say that the incarceration is cannabis related so they may need to provide additional information or if that record was sealed or expunged it, it's not, it won't appear on that background check. So to address that I've kind of I did reach out to someone in the court and get actually was given a lot of detailed information I tried to be as general as possible in case some of that information changes and because I think it's probably different from state to state. So, you know, the guidance will talk about that in the narrative space in the application applicants can share details about their incarceration and then can provide documents that they gather from the court. For their own sealed or expunged record they may be able if it's partially sealed or expunged they may be able to get some additional information. There may be cases in which something is sealed or expunged and they can't access that information. I know, Pepper, you've mentioned that in Vermont that there are records kept about cases that are expunged. I'm not sure that other states do that. So I've listed here the types of documentation that folks can provide to support their social equity application, including, you know, newspaper articles sort of those things that that are out there that, you know, even with an expunged record will still exist. So, you know, in the newspaper article, you know, documentation from a representing attorney if they choose to get that letter from offender reentry caseworker or other narrative documentation that they can provide. Yeah, I think this looks good. David, do you know what comes up, what you get in response in Vermont. If you seek to kind of access the expungement database. For your own, for your own. Yeah, so I've never actually seen the document that the court produces but I know that they do produce some document piece of paper that somebody can physically hold and show or copy it produced for anybody else. Do we know states do that. You know, the vast majority of states, other than for things like wrongful convictions and things like that, don't actually delete the records permanently, like we do here in Vermont. So I think most states will allow you, most states allow you to kind of petition the court if you're the actual recipient of an expungement or a ceiling to get some documents from the court. I mean, the only, the only thing about the narrative or the article newspaper article is like we're not talking about someone who's been charged and usually the newspaper article relates to the charge. We're talking about someone who's been incarcerated. And I'm not. So again, I think, you know, we'll need an attestation as well that someone was actually incarcerated. If you don't, yeah. And I do. I don't think that's written here, but I do think that that is part of our application. Yeah. Okay, that's right. I think there is just a general catch all everything you put in your application is the truth. Okay. Okay. And for those who've had a family member who was incarcerated. So just listing here again for our own reminder what we've determined is a family member. Applicants should provide information to show the incarcerated person as a family member. So that could be documentation like a board certificate adoption paperwork marriage certificate or a narrative description with an attestation. I think there are a lot of family relationships that we've listed here for which there is no, there isn't legal documentation stepchild. For example, there may not be any sort of legal documentation that demonstrates that. Yeah, I think that makes sense. Yep. And then for folks who are providing documentation from the court for a family member. It might actually be a little bit more challenging. So there is, there are documents that are available to any member of the public who requests them to the court, depending on the case. If it's sealed or expunged, though, that documentation is really only available to the person. If I understand correctly, so to the person whose record is sealed or expunged. So depending on, you know, the relationship between these folks, that may be a challenge to gather. And I'm just sort of stating that out loud so that we as a board think about that as we go through this in the future. But certainly they, you know, if it's public information, they'll be able to request it from the court and get the information, get a case summary or something like that. And then similar to the individual, if there's, you know, when they're seeking a record, if there's no record available that's accessible, then, you know, we could, they can provide additional information. I've included a newspaper article here, but could be something else. And then a narrative with an attestation as well. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, this one's a little bit more challenging, I think, in terms of gathering documents for someone else. Yeah. Rather than for oneself. Yeah, absolutely. And then for those that who, you know, don't meet that sort of first three criteria, but are from a community that historically has been disproportionately impacted by cannabis prohibition.  And I think we've left community open and undefined because community can mean a lot of different things. As well as how they were personally harmed by cannabis prohibition. And that we want the description to include, you know, the harm, the impact to education, employment, housing and then other detrimental effects on their lives and well being. And this would be a narrative. One question that I have about this in the background check guidance, we included an opportunity to provide information verbally. Do we want to do that here? And I know you're probably multitasking. This that's really a resource question. So the question is, you know, improving that you fall as a social equity category into the catch all terminology that you're from a community and you're personally impacted. Do we want to have an option for folks to state that verbally as opposed to the board as opposed to just in written or to staff. Yeah, I think that's fine. The only recommendation I have is that we include some provision in the guidance that that just discloses to the person that that may result in the delay in their application. Because it will take time for staff to do that. That's a good idea. I think we can do it. It just may take a little additional time. I would just a general point as well that I made several times. I just wanted to be clear maybe and I think it might fall in the rules. Or that sorry the guidance here is that someone may qualify as a social equity applicant, but because of a criminal history might not actually be qualified to be a license holder. And you may have a cannabis related offense to incarcerated for, but that cannabis related offense also involves some element that would disqualify you. So I think that should be in the rule just that you can qualify as. I mean, not the rule so guidance that you know qualifying as a social equity applicant does not guarantee that you will receive a license. I think I've included that in the actual introduction. Okay, didn't review but I or yeah I think I intended to anyway so yes. We said that multiple times but I think providing that clear and writing will be getting people kind of saying like right well I've got this canvas offense so I'm guaranteed a license you know right. It's just there's a little bit of nuance to that right. And that's it. Those are my that's sort of the rundown of the guidance. I've shared the full document with both Bryn and David, and we can work on, you know, language and semantics but I think that we've made the decisions we need to make. Yeah, it looks great. Honestly. Yeah, I think I think that we can kind of. I think as we compile our guidance there might be some kind of terminology issues that we need to square because we're all kind of working on them separately that you know like some of the terminology like I've been using the term request for more information or request for information. And sometimes you know I feel like that process is implicated here or it's kind of. But obviously we can just kind of work through those discrepancies when the document is kind of compiled as a whole. Sounds good to me. Yeah. Great well thank you Julie. Why don't we we're a little bit ahead of schedule but why don't we move to the public comment section of our agenda. So just as always start with folks that joins via the link. Please just raise your virtual hand. We'll do our best to call on you in the order that you raise your hand, and then we'll then move to the folks that joined by the phone. Nellie, would you mind just helping out with that process. Absolutely. We've got Rick first. Good morning. Can you all hear me. Thanks. I've got some laryngitis. Can't talk much. Maybe lucky for everyone. A question on the the FBI background check. So I recently completed my hemp permit application and for their background check. I was able to use Identigo has a service in Plattsburg where they take digital fingerprints produced the FBI background check. They emailed it to me as a secure document and I forwarded it to the ag agency and they accepted that as the background check for the permit. I know Identigo in Vermont, their locations in Vermont do not offer that service, but apparently their locations in New York and possibly Massachusetts Hampshire do as well. So I'm wondering if that might suffice for for background check for this permit, either pre qualification and or the full qualification later. Thank you. Great. Thanks. Thanks, Rick. I know that there's a lot of questions out there. We are keeping track of all and we'll be back in touch, but we don't generally answer questions directly during these public comment sessions. Rick, and as a side note, I saw the emailed me. I can get back to you separately on that. Thank you. Apologies for posing a question. I guess it was a comment. You can you can pose them please do they do help us kind of orient us to the issues that people are facing, but we just generally don't answer them in this context. Next, we have Dave. Hey, so first, I just like to thank you for demonstrating that an agency is able to adopt emergency rules without a hold of government emergency, despite what we may have heard every Tuesday for the last several months. But that aside that piece of snark aside, it would be great if in the in a future meeting, you could provide a little bit of guidance as to your expected timeline for reviewing the applications you get for pre approval. Just so folks can know I've had a lot of clients ask and we really have no ability to give answers on that on that. So thank you very much. Thanks, Dave. Anyone else would like to make a comment. Please raise your virtual hands. We have a fair up next. Hi, yeah. Yes, I think so. Okay, great. Just a comment. I have spoken to a couple of people and have contacted numerous people but haven't gotten any clear direction. I'm wondering if there's a way to know what your packaging requirements will be clearly on your site if you're going to have some place that says all of that. That's my only comment is it's it there's been a lot of mysteriousness and unclear questions on what is actually required on all packaging spelled out and if there's any font sizes required or anything like that. I'm going to dive super deep into starting our packaging right now. I'm struggling with finding the information in the cannabis control board. That's it. Thank you. Thayer, I also have an email from you. I will be getting back to you. Oh, much appreciated. Thank you. Next is Matt. Good morning. I just wanted to take a quick moment. Not so much any content of my rant, but I just wanted to express my thanks to you folks as the control board with everything that you were tasked for. I wanted to thank you for your efforts and including as much as the public as possible through your comment periods through your meetings just for public comment. I think we have a unique opportunity here in Vermont to have access and to be a part of this rulemaking process. And I am extremely grateful and thankful that I live in Vermont and have been able to be a part of this and you guys were willing to include us in our comments and our testimony. So that is, I'm highly appreciative of that and I'm sure a lot of the community is as well. I know this meeting had a tad touch of medical to it. I missed a little bit this morning and I don't know if it was there, but and I know you're tasked with something difficult with that regard, but I really want to make sure that as we move forward that our medical folks are taken care of. They have been sidelined in terms of safety, consumer safety, testing and everything else. And we have three multi state operators that dominate our market right now. And I really think considering that most of them are extremely well funded, either from out of state or out of country at this point with slang and CBD and all their moldy products. I think I would really hope that we can make sure that our patients have full panel lab testing, either be it in medical or wreck. I would really like our patients to be taken care of because they have not been afforded that by the Department of Public Safety at this time. So again, thank you for all your efforts and everything you've done to bring this new market into fruition. And yes, thank you. Thanks for your time. Thank you, Matt. Next we have Benjamin. Hello, I just like to say thanks again guys for everything you're doing. And I know I've brought this point up before. But as an outdoor grower, I it is getting to be time to install all of these fencing requirements and stuff and I would just like to request on behalf of all of us outdoor growers if it would be possible to see some sort of pdf with minimum fencing requirements for this outdoor season. Thank you. Thanks Ben. So anyone else who joined by the link raise your virtual hand also open things up to people that joined by the phone if there are any you can hit star six to unmute yourself if you'd like to make a comment. We have Catherine. Yes, hello. I'm. I'm just starting out here with beginning bringing this process into fruition I've grown here in Vermont for quite a while on my own but it's a little daunting for me I started the business side I've done all this stuff but I really I'm unsure on my next steps on how to bring this into fruition do I go ahead and do the pre qualify. Or do I just wait this out any recommendations I guess is what I'm kind of looking forward to everything's pretty much in place, kind of already I just kind of got to bring this on a different level. I'm going to be focusing in on outdoor as the previous guy spoke so it seems to me that the requirements are virtually the same for the licensing part. Just the job that I have to do is a little bit less because it would be a bottom tier one level entrance. Thanks for the comments so so again you know we generally don't respond to questions directly during this period this is about you kind of providing information to the board. We do we do recognize that there are a lot of questions out there. If you have objective questions that relate to our rules or the procedure or the process for getting a license please email those to Nellie again that email address is in ccb.info at vermont.gov. We can't give legal advice or business advice or you should do this or maybe you shouldn't do that. We really can't do that but if you do have objective questions about our rules or procedures do email us and again it's very helpful for us to hear the questions because when we start to see repeated questions we can kind of provide guidance on our website and things like that. Thank you. Jared. Yes. Hi. Can you clarify why it is that you said we needed to do the FBI fingerprint twice. And just for your information I did submit a fingerprint background check FBI background check for the for my. Hemp CBD license and maybe you can use. Their number that they're using to collect these. To. To. Use for your own FBI background checks. But anyway it's unclear why we have to do it twice. Thanks for the comment. Thank you. Again we're not really answering questions during this session this is about providing the board kind of your thoughts about the ongoing industry. And you know whatever else is on your mind we don't generally get into the. Kind of Q&A sessions during our public comment windows. It's just that you just did talk about it so just wasn't clear. I can tell you that a fingerprint supported background check through the Vermont crime information center is a requirement of law. And so we're trying to follow the laws closely as we possibly can. Can you reiterate what you said earlier though about having to do it twice. Jared you can email me at ccb.info at vermont.gov and I'd be happy to work with you to clarify that and to go over what the board stated again. Okay. Next we have Jason. Hi good afternoon. Thanks for the opportunity to have these. Times for comment section and I'll look forward to seeing clarification or your response. Just curious after the completion of this meeting. And the proposals that you've presented for a final proposal. Is complete. And regarding the third and fourth rule being emergency. What are obviously the next steps are to try to stay with the schedule of the pre qualification which gives you data and in some way I believe. It gives some incentive to have an open door to be able to complete a license within a year period is that how I read it. With that said what else really has to get done with legislation and legislators to actually have these rulings be in real effect. So we can gauge that the accuracy of the timeline that's projected is something that's actually feasible and with the payment of the potential. License applications being available for us on the dates. That you're considering doing that. The fear might be is if it doesn't get passed fully and these rules aren't really. Possible to have completely in effect it's just possible. Would there be a refunding of license fees and or were that carry over to the next year. If we fall into a situation where these proposed rules don't actually get accepted. And thank you for your time. Thanks Jason. Any other public comments. Other from folks that joined by the link or on the phone. Okay. I will close the public comment section. That is the last thing on our agenda before German. Julie Kyle, but any other and a concluding thoughts that you want to make before we adjourn today. Great. All right, well then I will adjourn this meeting. Thank you all for joining. Thanks for the questions. And we are keep track of them. And yeah, we'll see you next week.


How e-commerce changed due to the 2020 illness. Yeah, I don't think it's too soon to say that that illness that went around the world will be one of the defining things of 2020. And we went from not being able to gather at all to, you know, maybe, right? No, thousands of people couldn't gather. And then they said, you know, well, you know, a couple of people can gather and now there's 10 and maybe 100. It's kind of getting back to normal, but it's going to have lasting effects. The way people shop, the way people think, all these things have changed all because of 2020. In this video, I want to go through all those things and show you how you can take advantage of these things for your business and the things you shouldn't do. And we're getting started right now. Now, don't forget to subscribe below and ring the bell. Turn on all bell notifications so you're notified every single time I go live or I upload a new video. Now, obviously there's going to be a shift in the way people were thinking because there was some like panic buying, right? I mean, they were going in the stores, they were buying all the canned goods, they were buying all the meats. Forget about toilet paper. You couldn't find that anywhere. But the point being is those buying cycles, the way people reacted, the patterns they had in 2020 are going to affect them long term. But the question is, how can you use this to your advantage? Now, one thing that came out of this that I thought was really interesting is psychiatrists defined a new term called therapy buying, therapy buying, where people would go online and they would buy stuff to make themselves feel good. Now, this actually really helped e-commerce sellers because all of a sudden people are wanting to buy online. They used to be afraid of it and now they use it as something to actually make themselves feel good. The next thing you would consider is that people saw shelves empty really for the first time in mass numbers. I mean, there was always some shortages of stuff and there always will be in our supply chain. But when food is gone and they can't get food, it does something to their mentality. They understand a sense of urgency that you could actually use in your advertising too. The first group I want to look at is Gen Z and Millennials. Gen Z and Millennials, it really changed the way they thought about things. As a matter of fact, in a recent survey, they said 96% of them are going to change their spending habits based on that illness that went around the world. They are more apt to stock up on things and they're less apt to spend money on experiences and they're starting to actually look at how much money they're spending. Now, Gen X and Boomers didn't seem to affect them as much. While we look at the Millennials and we see that 50% of them are changing their spending habits, when we look at Gen X and Boomers, it seems that only 24% of Gen X will change their spending habits and 34% of Boomers. Now, here's the cool thing. If you're an e-commerce person, almost everybody polled said that they're taking another look at shopping in store. To provide them with that social distancing, a lot of them are buying online in masses at this point. So whatever you're selling online, you have a much better chance of gaining a customer now than you did a year and a half ago. Of course, look at the grocery market. I want to put a chart up, but grocery spending really soared what in what period of time it looks like. The following graph with data from Rakuten Intelligent shows a huge spike in grocery related commerce. The rest of the e-commerce seems like it might be up a little bit, but no drastic peaks and valleys. What about other e-commerce? Let's take a look at this chart I've got here and see what it's done to the spending habits. It seems like, in addition to grocery, e-commerce covers a wide number of products across several different categories. Common Thread Collective has been providing valuable data with the illness on e-commerce shopping behavior, including the chart that you're seeing now. While e-commerce performance is not generally up or down, breaking down the data by vertical tells us a bit more of the story. What about subscription services? Subscription services have soared. If you have anything that is a subscription service, you have a much better chance of selling it now to the general public than you ever did before. Now, check out this data on spending and conversion rates. It's pretty interesting stuff if you look at it here. It looks like e-commerce across a number of specific sectors monitoring and comparing data from selected businesses year to year. The graph comes from their observations and it looks like people are making buying choices based on new and ever-changing global and local circumstances. The product categories that are being purchased are also changing. Let's look at some health and safety products and what was selling. Let's check this out. It looks like hygienic and medical masks were up 300% which would be expected. What about shelf stable goods? I own a survival food company and we sell products that last for years on the shelf. We have seen a significant increase in products like that. The average household now is starting to stock up on items that they weren't able to get when the illness was really bad. Now, let's check out food and beverage. Food and beverage is definitely up but the important thing really about looking at this is how they're buying. What are their buying patterns? There's a new thing called BOPIS, right? That is buy online, pick up and store. They're starting to order online and just drive up and get their groceries. Also, apps like Instacart have seen a huge increase in usage. Check out this chart right here. ShipBob, a shipping and fulfillment partner for e-commerce stores, gathered data from 3,000 of their merchants and is tracking the data. While the chart here shows some fluctuations, the month over month increase in online sales for food and beverage, 18.8%. That is amazing. And what about digital streaming? Well, that increased and it's obvious because so many people were shut into their homes, they were looking for entertainment. Places like Netflix and Amazon and Hulu all saw huge increases in their viewership and subscriptions. Now, let's look at luxury goods and how they have been affected. Let's check out this chart right here. Vogue Business projects a potential loss as great as $10 billion for this industry in 2020 due to the illness. This is in part because luxury goods rely heavily on the Asian market's purchasing power while it has been affected from this particular illness since really last January. This chart right here kind of demonstrates that all of these brands are actually seeing the portion of their Asia and Asia Pacific plus Japan change dramatically. The next thing to be considered is fashion and apparel. How was that affected? Let's check that out. I have a chart right here I want to show you. It looks like department stores like Macy's, JC Penney's, large chains like Abercrombie and Fitch and Nike at DTC brands with some storefronts like Rothes and Everlane are all closing their physical store and experiencing losses. Stores like Patagonia are halting even their online stores to protect all workers in the supply chain. So that's a pretty interesting thing. We are all of us currently living in kind of a flood. So how can you use all of this information to your advantage? Well, you may want to take a look at the products you're selling online. If you've been leaning towards, you know, high end luxury products, you may want to go to print on demand t-shirts. If you have been selling high priced items, you may want to look at more economical items. You may want to look at items that people can use around their home. Things like cooking items and appliances for the kitchen, tools for the kitchen, woodworking, any type of hobby things. All of these things are seeing huge increases and you can use that to your advantage in your e-commerce sales. You need to think about what would people do while they are at home. Now I can tell you just my YouTube channel alone, I got so many more subscribers in the beginning of the illness because people were at home. They had to have some type of entertainment and something to do. And we kind of doubled down on that and I did even more and more videos. Currently I'm publishing five videos a week, Monday through Friday. And I'm actually doing lives too. It seems like people want some live interaction. So six days a week I'm going live and doing things to help people start running and grow online businesses. Which you are welcome to check out. Look at my live videos. You'll see a lot of those on this channel. The point being is maybe you need to make a little pivot in what you're selling online. You can take advantage of some of these trends. If you go through this video and you look at the things that are selling well and the things that aren't selling well, maybe you back off of those a little bit. I hope you enjoyed this video. I hope you got something out of it. If you did, do me a favor. Put a comment below. Maybe you have a question about this, about starting, running and growing your online business. Put your questions and comments below. I want to hear from you. I appreciate you watching this video so very much. I actually have a course below. It's a $97 course. You can get it absolutely free. All you have to do is click the link and learn no credit card required. Do me a favor. Give me a thumbs up. If you like this, don't forget to subscribe. If that button down there is red, you want to click it, turn it gray and turn on all bell notifications. You want to be notified every single time I do a new video. And I can do that if you turn on those notifications. Make sure you check all notifications. Thank you so much for watching this video and I'll see you in the next one. Subscribe to my channel and click that little bell right here so you can be notified every time I do a new video. Also click on one of those videos there. Keep watching on my channel.


My first day was really good. I went to one class so far, and that's my computer class, and it seems like it's gonna be very easy, so. It was good. I mean, we went over to Sylvus, and then my professor was like, okay, we're gonna start learning today, so that was fun. And it was good to come back, and put some familiar things. I'm just excited to not be a freshman anymore on campus. It's nice. I loved freshman year, but I'm excited next year to start actually doing stuff that's gonna help with my major and take classes more towards what nursing I want to do. Looking forward to getting more into my major since freshman year was a lot of prerequisites and stuff like that. Well, we're both in film, and I think we're both excited to work on student films and write films, and help different things we get to do in that major. Just kind of getting back into it, it's good getting to see everybody again, and it's fun to be back on campus. I guess it's just like being back with people that you've known for such a, you know, for the past two years, and getting to see everyone, and of course, football season's starting. It's always a, I don't know, both of us, there's always a good time to be back. I'm gonna write football season. I love football, I love that. I'm writing football season. Football season. Always football season. I'm looking forward to trying out rock climbing. I mean, that's not classes, but like, I haven't been to the rock hall yet, and I heard they have one here at the rec, so I'm gonna go to that. That sounds fun. Make sure you get up on time because those eight o'clock classes are not going to wait for you. It's almost bittersweet. It's hard to believe that we've already been here for half the time, and we've got so much left to go.


Third edition of the e-forum Dan Digital Report clearly shows that what we knew all this while, that digital is now growing even faster than before. I expect that it will cross 14,000 crores of business in 2019, which will roughly be about a 32% growth over the previous year. Also, the rate of growth of digital is now at least three times more of the next fastest growing medium, which is probably television. So in times to come, I'm pretty sure in the next two or three years, almost one fourth of the entire advertising market in India is going to be occupied by digital. The Dan Digital Report covers areas which are beyond just the numbers. It's a great perspective because it's based upon feedback from some of the top digital marketers in the country. So it gets a good direction of where our business is heading. And one thing that clearly stands out this year is that voice is going to become even more important. And I'm hopeful that once this launch happens, you'll be able to find that, and we're going to try and do it in the launch itself, that you'll be able to find this report on Alexa. Because voice is clearly now going to be the next video soon this week. All aspects of digital seem to be growing really fast. And as market leaders and serious network, I'm very happy to bring this report to the industry.