Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: First month in advance. Thank

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: you, and good afternoon once again. This is the Senate Government Operations Committee meeting on Friday, 01/23/2026. We have one item left. Before we get to that, just for the committee's edification, senator Vyhovsky sent me what was, I think, the recommendation from the summer GAC Oh. Government Accountability Committee draft. And in order for this to proceed this year, we have to make this a committee bill ASAP, and we need to vote it out of this committee by next Friday. By the twenty ninth. Thursday. So I will leave it up to senator Vyhovsky. Vyhovsky. Vyhovsky. Vyhovsky. Now I've

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: derailed my own. I

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: will leave it up to senator Vyhovsky to come up with the draft so we can vote on it on Tuesday. All we're doing is saying we want this committee bill so we can It'll back in the then decide it. Would that fair?

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. That's totally fair. I wanna be clear with everyone that I don't like everything in this bill, but for expediency sake, I just recycled the bill from 2024 to send it to the floor, bring it back, and then do more go ahead.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Right. Which is what we're

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: doing for all our committee bills. Yes. But, so I'm not,

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I mean, there's fun stuff

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: there, right? Like, but I

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: just wanna be clear with it.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: And we've already walked through the agenda for next week. The only addition we've made is depending on the availability. We didn't we have not yet been able to find time for Secretary Samuelson to join us, but her office has testified, I think, at Senate Health and Welfare, one of the other committees, and that they will be coming in either Tuesday or when or Wednesday or Thursday next week. Everything else is as we mentioned yesterday. So with that in mind, let's get to two seventy six. And if we don't have any extended testimony, and it's a two page bill, maybe there will be a lot, maybe there won't, we will adjourn, and you are all free to get home as quickly as you can to prepare for what appears to be a rare and old nor'easter coming up.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Yes. Thank goodness. What a great thing for our ski industry.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Indeed.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: My dog is

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: excited. I will turn it over to Senator White to walk us through her reasoning for the bill.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you, chair Collamore. I think you actually heard a really clear and concise case for my motivation for this bill, which is there are specific communities where there seems to be a higher concentration of cannabis retail establishments, largely because they had a big move, right, as we started to legalize cannabis and we made it available to them where their voters and potential retail establishments pushed for a vote. It happened, and those businesses are up and running. Where surrounding towns, for example, in Windsor County, there's multiple pockets where we have, like, Windsor, White River Junction, Woodstock have voted, but then surrounding communities have not taken up the vote. The reasoning I've heard has been it just hasn't floated back up to the main topic of the community conversation, and that there's concerns that, you know, if we made it a big deal, why bring another argument to the select board meetings? Why bring another argument to the voters? So I think what the purpose of this bill does, the purpose is to kind of diffuse that individual each town has to come up and make a proposal, has to vote. Rather, what it does is in the twenty twenty six general election, not town meeting day, very specifically chose not to do it on town meeting day because of the because just the simplicity of it because of, like, on the floor votes, for example, can be I think that's the simplicity of the warning, I think, should tell you why it might be better for the general election, which if you look at page two, the final page of the bill, the question is shall the licensed cannabis retailers be authorized shall licensed cannabis op retailers be authorized to operate in this mut municipality? Yes. No. My hope additionally with having it be in November was I think that's an election that will see more voters who will come out for it. I'm ideally hoping it would be an easier warning and process for town clerks. I think they're gonna be our group of people who probably have the most commentary on this because I think any ask of them can be daunting. So, yeah, that's why I did it. I think it's important that we have the conversations and we don't have, I think, individual towns seeing the political will to move a vote on it unless there's an active retailer, and active retailers have identified the towns that have already allowed them the opportunity to build. So they're not choosing to motivate other communities, even if it's their hometown. You know, I think about I think about many communities in our district who would probably be better suited for a cannabis retail establishment, but they choose to be in Hartford. They choose to be in Woodstock because that is a community where they don't need to go through the legwork of trying to motivate a local board to have a vote on it. And doing this in one go, I think, would give us a statewide conversation rather than kind of the piecemeal approach we've seen so far, which is which would further create that condensed number of retail statutes. So that's the hope there.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Thank you. Lieutenant Clarkson.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: So one of the things I like about this approach is that it's not a mandate. Mhmm. It gives every town the ability to vote. It's not a mandated because we're entertaining it in other bills, a man a mandatory. It's shifting it from opt in to opt opt out. I like this because it gives every town an opportunity to vote. So they but what is really great is that it sets it calls the question Yeah. On their having the discussion. So for those of us who were not or many people who are not so fond of opt outs, because it is sort of a mandate, unless you take action otherwise, I like that for other things. But, anyway, I like this because it really does encourage every town to have discussion about it, and it is not a mandatory opt out. So that I think is fair. And Sharon, remember, Sharon

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: has to vote for Sharon. Yeah. And that's the other thing is there's communities where I think they haven't had the opportunity to have that discussion in part because other towns that have gone on their own to have individual town votes have seen some of the chaotic conversations happening, and then they go, maybe we don't wanna bring this up on town meeting. We're trying to get our wastewater treatment bomb through. We don't also wanna have a cannabis vote. So I think we've also seen some hesitancy from communities who wouldn't call the question, but probably should.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Okay.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Yeah. And it would be only be for towns the way I I believe is towns that have not already. So you wouldn't be like, if

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: you were hard for voting.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Yes. Exactly. So if you're hard for you, Bari voted, it's not like you're gonna reverse course, you're not being asked to have some of your balances.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So let me invite Tucker Anderson to join us and walk us through the bill. Just to remind everybody members, questions for Tucker should be directed to the words on the page and not his opinion if he even wanted to offer one. That's not what he's His opinions are just bad. Just reminding us of all. May I

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: just before we enter into this conversation, how many towns have opted in again? 80.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: 81, I think you said.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: No, that's 81 eighty eight zero two liquor stores.

[James Pepper (Cannabis Control Board)]: James Pepper, cannabis control board. I believe it's 78.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Okay. Yeah.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Welcome. Well, good afternoon, Tucker Anderson, Legislative Council, fully sanitized and opinionless and ready to walk you through S two seventy six, an accolating to requiring municipalities to hold a vote concerning the operation of cannabis establishments. You've already heard a wonderful synopsis of the build and its functions, so what I'll do is highlight the words on the page, but also the who, the what, the where, the when, and the how. So starting with the who, that would be cities, towns, or incorporated villages. These are the municipal corporations that are covered by the bill. You will not have water districts voting on whether or not to authorize cannabis establishments within their district boundaries.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So do Vyhovsky or fire departments.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Well, I'm glad no water districts or fire departments, and I'm sure you caught this in your drafting, but aren't school districts also municipalities?

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: They are, but they would be excluded because you are expressly calling out cities, towns, and incorporated villages. Yes.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I knew that he was on it.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. I'm off his on it. Yeah. It's a problem. When will this be happening? At the twenty twenty six general election. You have heard some of the policy behind this. One note that I would add about the general assembly holding these sort of votes at the general election is that those are the highest voter turnouts even at the municipal level, often higher than your annual or special municipal meetings. One other thing to note about the general election and the general election ballot is that there are quite a few proposals that come up for the general election ballot over the course of a given legislative biennium, and there can rise a point of saturation with the ballot. Now, the ballot doesn't have prescribed limits on its length, but there is a practical consideration, which is voter education about what is on the ballot. And the secretary of state does produce guidance documents for voter education. Something to consider since this committee will see, I assume all of the general election ballot proposals over the course of the session to keep in mind as you move forward if there are quite a few issues, lead to voter confusion. Did you over all of your questions?

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I do have another question, and it is, I feel like it's been a long time since we've done been diving into this. But for a general election, secretary of state prepares all of the ballots for local election,

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: for special elections. That is

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: the town that does it. Right? That is correct. So this also takes the burden off of the towns to produce these ballots. One point of clarification.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: This would be on the municipal portion of the ballot, and it would be produced by the municipal corporation itself. Okay. Yes. Now there was a time during COVID where all of the ballots were being printed and produced by the secretary of state, which is where some of that confusion Okay. Might come.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Thank you. Now I'm glad I asked.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Alright. So the qualifier on municipal corporations that we're dealing with here is that these are the towns, cities, and incorporated villages that as of 07/01/2026 have not already held. Okay. Alright. So at the general election, those qualifying municipalities shall vote on the article that is contained in this new section. The vote has to be held by a surrounding ballot. So right there, you have all of the floor votes that viva Voce votes cut out. Subsection b, you have the warning language. The warning for the election shall contain an article providing for a vote upon the following question. Shall licensed cannabis retailers be authorized to operate in this municipality? Yes or no? This exact same frame for the article and the warning is taken from existing law related to alcoholic beverages in title seven, specifically the nineteen sixty nine annual visible meeting vote, which is still in statute where all of the municipalities and state were tasked with asking the question of their voters as to whether or not alcoholic beverages, broken into two categories, malt and vinous beverages, spirits and fortified wines, could be sold within their municipal limits. And what date was that? It would be March. I don't know the precise date. It it was 1969. Last time? Yes. There are I was just I was making this earlier. There are still less than one handful of dry towns in Vermont Right.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Based on that vote. That's what prompted that

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: vote because it wasn't pro it wasn't the end of prohibition when you would have thought they would have had that vote.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: It's when the news about prohibition reached for money. It was after some prolonged back and forth statewide initiatives, but also local initiatives to authorize alcoholic beverage sales. 1969 was kind of the turn menace point for the General Assembly under its state control model, tasking the municipalities with giving the thumbs up or thumbs down affirmatively on the sale of alcoholic beverages.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Just think if they'd had that vote about cannabis at that point.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Certainly would have been an outlier. And subsection C, a vote to permit the operation of a licensed cannabis retailer or integrated licensee, I'll emphasize that because it's something I need to flag as a drafting error from your attorney, within the municipality may be rescinded pursuant to the provisions of Section eight sixty three. I should have started with this, but section eight sixty three is the opt in vote provisions and procedures including rescission of those votes for cannabis currently, and within that statute, integrated licensees are included. However, in mirroring that language, made a mistake because there are, from what I understand, no longer integrated licensees. Oh, okay.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: So just be taking that part Strike it. That's all.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I have a couple questions, but I'll certainly yield to any the other committee members who do. One of the opinions expressed earlier was that the density of what we are looking at now in terms of retail establishments in a particular location tends to move people in a certain direction. In other words, if you live in, and I don't know whether it's true or not, Thetford. Yeah. And they have not opted to join the rest of the

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: They do.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Of the municipalities. And they either have a choice of driving somewhere or making use of the unregulated market, so to speak. So let me ask it this way. And I'm trying to understand what the landscape is now and why we're considering this. What what happens now if you live in a in a location that doesn't have a vote? Can a group of citizens petition, like putting up a bunch of things in a retail store that says, we wanna take a vote,

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: or do they have to petition to the local select board or city manager or town manager or whatever? Whether or not this article could be raised by a petition is an interesting question because my recollection is that section eight sixty three does not specifically provide for a petition of an article. There are general petitioning rights in Vermont, but something to keep in mind is that if there's not the express acknowledgment of a petitioning right in a statute, then the legislative body has authority to determine the articles that are warrant, for the annual or special meetings that needs to acknowledged. Having noted all that, it'd be appropriate for me to say, I'll look into it Okay. And give you a legal determination on what the scope of voter authority is to bring a petitioned initiative under section eight sixty three for town wide voting.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. Again, just trying to kinda feel where we are. So from what you're saying, it might be a better idea if there were a group of eight citizens to lobby the legislative body to bring it up at a select board or or city board of alderman rather than running around with a bunch

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: of petitions? It's certainly an option that they Okay.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Good answer. My second question is, what happens if a municipality doesn't do this? Is there a presumption inherent in the language that they voted to end?

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: That is not built into the four corners of the bill, but it is an interesting thought. And whenever I'm asked about the failure or neglect to, perform a mandatory duty under state law. I always point to, section in title 13, that to my knowledge has never been used, but there is a criminal, provision for when a state or local officer neglects or fails to carry out a duty of their office.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: What is the penalty for that crime?

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: We could look it up sometime. I don't know on hand, but 'm I gonna restrain myself.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I wish that we would.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: As a team lead, I always threaten the attorneys on my team that if they don't do their work, it'd be gonna report them to the state's attorney

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: in Washington.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Again, it's just my first glance at it, and those are the things that they started thinking about, and don't want to put a municipality at risk of

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Buying any title company.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Going to jail together or having some sort of punitive monetary enforcement action. So just two questions. Obviously, well, maybe not, obviously. I don't think we're gonna vote on this bill today, we'll have you back in at some point down the road and continue to talk about it. Senator White?

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Thank you, Chair Collamore. So this bill doesn't go the next step of saying, okay. Let's say you voted yes in this thing. What happens as a town? So let's say we pass this bill, a town votes yes. They can essentially follow a few paths. They can go and create a their own their own cannabis control board. What's the process if you were, even now as a town, trying if what what would happen?

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: The current scheme under general law doesn't change. Okay. Exactly the same as if they had voluntarily held this vote Okay. And authorized the operation retail establishments. Okay. They just follow the existing Title VII. Okay.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Senator Clarkson? However, what I hope we'd hear from Pepper and Julie and hi? Kyle. Kyle. Kyle. Okay. Well, I guess. Kyle. Kyle. Yes. No. I'm not remembering. Coloritis.com. How what the additional workload would be. I mean, because it would be I think it's substantial additional workload. Maybe I'm wrong. And but, you know, I I think the thing and I'm hoping that you're what the implications are for them of of what this might entail. I I I will say that I think this is an elegant way to call the question on it and and not have a bad thing. So I I actually think this is I think this is a nice way to handle it, a proactive way of handling it.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So certainly I would, unless Tucker got any more.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: I was going to say that your conversation, your two questions, and what you just brought up has gone to both sides of discussion about the impact on the illicit market or saturation of retail establishments and workload, and you have a ton of institutional knowledge that you all have generated over the last decade on a few different related areas, both around movement to access certain types of products from the illicit pocket, sports wagering being the most recent example, but also saturation of retail availability of liquor and lottery. And you have asked state agencies to produce information reports on all of those things very recently. So there's a wealth of information you could rely on to start looking at that. And I'm sure the CCB can also use the kind of resources that they can put right at your fingertips.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Correct.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So since this bill was only referred to us, I think yesterday, perhaps the day before, it's pretty new, I don't expect that James or David might have an initial reaction to it. If you do, great. If you don't, take it up again at some point. I don't know whether it'll be next week or the week after. We're to look at it again and maybe at that point if you I can give you a thirty second. Sure. David, okay. Have one question for David. Does he now have a

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: ton that are chomping at the

[David (Vermont Cannabis Action Fund)]: Sure. Dave from the Vermont Campus Action Fund. So I think the high level reaction is this is this is a very strong step towards normalizing a a a market failure that is structural due to choices that were made that just sort of unintended consequences five years ago. And so we very, very strongly support this. We would support it even if it also included a provision requiring the towns that have already opted in to choose again to opt out because, you know, perhaps a town like Burlington would say, hey. We've had enough, and we don't want any more cannabis stores in our town. And that is a decision the voters can make. Now the way eight sixty three lays it out now is that if that were to happen, none of the existing stores would be threatened. They would continue to be

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: able to

[David (Vermont Cannabis Action Fund)]: be a moratorium on It it would be letting the townspeople say, we've had enough. You know, wait until there's fewer stores in this town before you ask us again. And so that would be something that industry would be supportive of.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. Sergei Ryvsky?

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: There's nothing currently preventing Burlington, for example, from having that vote, though.

[David (Vermont Cannabis Action Fund)]: No. Correct. And I think what the reason we haven't seen a lot of votes, to answer your question, senator Clarkson, we don't see towns clamoring to have the vote. I think there's a couple of reasons.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: I actually meant retailers because you represent retailers. Uh-uh. You you know about people. You Sure. Are you aware of retailers in towns that have voted no or not voted at all who are ready to get into this?

[David (Vermont Cannabis Action Fund)]: There there have been so just to be clear, Vermont Cannabis Action Fund represents retailers, cultivators, and manufacturers, the the whole industry, not just retailers. Just for the No.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: I I

[David (Vermont Cannabis Action Fund)]: Okay. I I don't wanna I don't wanna stand up here and say, I represent retailers. Right? That that's not No. But I I think that there are many, many retailers in saturated towns that want to move. I think there are retailers who have been eyeing South Burlington and Williston in in particular because those are two very retail centric towns where people from all over go shopping, including people from Middlebury. We go shopping in South Burlington and Dorcester Street all the time. Thank you. Love Trader Joe's. And Colchester as well. But those towns have not held votes for, I think, different reasons. I think the select boards are not self motivated to do it. It's very expensive to go out there and collect petitions in some of these larger towns, both in terms of time and money. You know, in Middlebury, I I actually went out and collected signatures in Middlebury. I needed 300 or so, and that took me a day. And and, you know, so

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: not to

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: ask any candidate. It's not over.

[David (Vermont Cannabis Action Fund)]: It's right. 300. But what if you had to do 3,000? That that's that's all. It's delegated. Yeah. Expensive. Right? So it's it's time consuming and expensive. That is why people have not done it. Because also they you know, if if I, as an individual business owner, were to spend that time and money and get a town to opt in, I don't be opening up for everybody, not just for myself. And so people are a little hesitating to to make that investment in an unsure environment. Again, with our market shrinking, it's very hard for us to find the money to make these big investments.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: And so

[David (Vermont Cannabis Action Fund)]: I think we have not seen any concrete action to get the bigger towns to opt in. We have seen some smaller towns opt in more recently, like Sharon, two votes. There's a client of mine, interesting situation. Hinesburg had a failed vote last year, but we haven't seen a lot of action there. I think some select courts also, you know, some select boards have a tendency to not want things to change. Yeah.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Oh, I

[David (Vermont Cannabis Action Fund)]: don't wanna be I don't wanna be controversial. Senator Morley, I

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: agree with you on that, but

[David (Vermont Cannabis Action Fund)]: there's nothing stopping them from voting.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Yes.

[David (Vermont Cannabis Action Fund)]: Correct. So if you don't like your select board, McCurry, because he won't bring it up, same thing happens to us. Will you vote to them? And so this is forcing, I believe, Yeah, of definitely.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: And that I But it's

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: not mandated an opt act.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Understandable, I can do this. So nothing to make the decision

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: for you.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Anyone can do this now, anyways. Mhmm. With a lot of effort.

[David (Vermont Cannabis Action Fund)]: Well, no. This whiteboard can put it on their warning in open three, and then it's on the warning for a poll, or they can petition. The voters can actually petition, I think, and and and get it put on on on the warning that way. Alright. I that is true. I I think it's a question of motivation. And, for for us, from the industry's viewpoint, we don't see select boards and municipal bodies being motivated to do this, and we have this structural impediment to a properly functional market that was a political choice made five years ago that that, you know, we're sort of seeing a consequence from it that is not good, and and we're asking for relief. But if they're not motivated to do it, it tells me there's not a big

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: push from the public to want to do it. Perhaps. Perhaps.

[David (Vermont Cannabis Action Fund)]: I don't think I can find a way to disagree with that. Sorry. Okay.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Well, I think just to respond. I do think it is that, like in Hartford, the retailers aren't pushing for it to go to other communities because they have a place that it's legal. So they're all so what had kind of happened five years ago was retailers in specific communities said, I want this where I live. I want this in my hometown. I want this in my designated downtown area. But now those areas are open, so someone who lives in a different town says, I don't wanna go through this multiyear process potentially of getting a vote in Weathersfield even though I live here, I grow here, all of that, because I can just open

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: up a shop at Hartford.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: So then Hartford ends up with four cannabis establishments because Wethersfield, although the perfect ideal location for this retailer, that retailer has an easier venture to go to a town that already has it. So I think it's actually less of, like, the consumer push that actually motivated a lot of the boats, but more of we had specific retailers or business owners who said, I wanna open up shop here. And that was the motivation, at least in our area. It was largely motivated. So But I I agree.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So let know about

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: that, Jason.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. I I think in a perfect democracy, which I think it would be hard to argue we are, that absolutely would would be true. But I I mean, I think that, you know, if you don't like what your select board is or isn't doing, you vote them out. But we also know that our municipal elections sometimes have 2% of the voters turn out. We won't see nobody. You know, we know that incumbency comes with power, and it's difficult often to unseat. So I I think and and we force votes all the time. We say you're gonna take a vote on all your electeds in in the state house every three years, and you're gonna take a vote on the presidential primary every like, we we force votes all the time. We're not forcing the opt in. We're just saying, ask the people. Yeah. It's it's forced democracy.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: We got a constitutional amendment.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: It's forced democracy.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Dave, do you wanna weigh in at all? Thank you, David. Yeah. Thank you.

[James Pepper (Cannabis Control Board)]: James Pepper to the Kansas Control Board. To the resource question, I don't see how this really impacts our resources at the board. I think what we will, of course, see is whoever opts in, especially this is South Burlington, not Williston, there'll be a rush of incumbent retailers to that place, and we need to work out exactly how we're in a a portion of this fairly that will create new retail leasing zones. You know, if you have 20 people rush to South Burlington, well, that'll be a new area of density. We do have a rule around this already about relocations. We're not issuing new retail licenses currently, so it's not gonna be a rush of new people. It will be the existing licensees. And

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: that will

[James Pepper (Cannabis Control Board)]: lead to, I'm sure, the existing licensees thinking that we're acting arbitrarily if we don't do it really well. You know, if we don't issue those very fair transparent process.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: So they have to go through a process to relocate. Right. Okay. And I absolutely appreciate that. And that sort of helps, because I It's hard for me to understand how, unless everyone left Burlington and moved to South Burlington, that retail density I I mean, just science. Right? Like, if I have one liter of water and I throw a gram of salt into it, cool. But then if I have 10 liters of water, like, it's gonna dilute it because there's more for it to spread out of. So I don't I imagine that maybe more of them, like, they're it's going to dilute that density with a larger

[James Pepper (Cannabis Control Board)]: I I think the person at Sharon may say, I wanna try out South Piranha ten. Know, you'll take places that are not dense right now. And because the market potential is so big

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Got it.

[James Pepper (Cannabis Control Board)]: In Williston, you know, then you might see people that are in nondense areas currently rush to a Google career.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Okay. Can't stop that. Google.

[James Pepper (Cannabis Control Board)]: Again, we have a rule on this already. We're already seeing this happen. You know, we've already seen people wanting to move, even though it's already potentially saturated in Burlington, people wanna move to Burlington. So we've already kind of laid out a process. It's just if it all happens, like we can deal with it when it's one at a time and do some analysis, was six people at 12:01AM right after this moment, all put in their request to change location to well established South Burlington. How do we deal with that? Is the lottery? You know, we just need to be prepared for that. It's an additional resource to the board, it's just something

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: they need to figure out. Thank you, James. So I have a quick question Okay. For Okay. See him. Thank you.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Tucker, circling back to the people who opted in choosing to opt out under the current law at Burlington per se, it's in my district, we've talked about it a lot today, decided we don't want more, we already have 11, the city council could call that question. Correct?

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: The question that would be called is whether to rescind the affirmative authorization for cannabis retailers in the municipality, not to create a moratorium on additional retailers.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: But the quest but this but if if the city council, they unilaterally can put that on the ballot. They don't need to petition it. They don't need, like they can just say, we're gonna have this vote. And if they have that vote to rescind the authority, the effect is that no new cannabis establishments can go in until they work to vote again to re opt in.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yes. Thank you.

[Kyle Harris (Cannabis Control Board)]: Kyle? Yeah. Kyle Harris. Yeah. Cannabis Control Board. Just to supplement James Cover's point and answer that, Senator White's point. You know, I do know a lot of folks that live in one place and operate a retail establishment in another place, and so while I think a rush to South Burlington, Williston, Colchester certainly would be looming. I do think that there we've seen relocation attempts already, and I think some folks would be willing to go, you know, relocate their business to a a a less popular part of the state and be closer to home and serve their actual community. So I think it's both ends of that spectrum.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Thank you. Anything else, committee? If Thank not you for hearing this. What's that?

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Thank you for

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: taking this up. I really appreciate it. Sure.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I try to be as open as possible.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Parody in all introductions. Thank you, Mr. Chittenden. Of course.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Hopefully, everybody has a safe and warm weekend regardless of where you're gonna be. The latest I heard from the National Weather Service, somewhere around 03:00 Sunday afternoon is when the snow will begin in earnest, it'll and probably go for twenty four hours. So it may be a little bit dicey coming back up here Tuesday morning, but maybe it won't be. Because as we all know, the weathermen is still getting paid whether it's a 100% correct or only one. So anyway.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Sadly, our AMT staff are being cut. You don't have to be

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: able to still get our pool of 60 But

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: thank you to the cannabis control board, all three members. To David, it was great to see you again, and obviously to Tucker.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Yay. And

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: thanks to Lynn for another great week. And we will adjourn for the week and see all of you on Tuesday. Thank you.