Aiming to better position the marketplace, Vermont's Cannabis Control Board pauses new retail license applications as they work to establish siting rules.

We have no authority to establish any sort of guidelines or regulations around retail siting.

We had a concern that once we started articulating what our plans were for retail establishments, that it might exacerbate this problem of retail saturation.

Plus, the Vermont Catholic Diocese filed for bankruptcy in a bid to resolve sexual abuse lawsuits, and Governor Scott hits the campaign trail to draw up support for fellow Republicans.

That more ahead on Vermont this Week.

From the Vermont Public Studio in Winooski.

This is Vermont this Week, made possible in part by the Lintilhac Foundation and Milne Travel.

Here's moderator Mitch Wertlieb.

Thanks so much for being with us.

I'm Mitch Wertlieb.

It's Friday, October 4th, and joining us on the panel today, we have Liam Elder Conners from Vermont Public, Sarah Mearhoff from VTDigger, and Sasha Goldstein from Seven Days.

Thank you all so much for being here today.

And, you know, we've got a busy week of news to talk about.

And I want to start with something, really interesting because we're almost at the anniversary now, two years since Vermont opened a retail cannabis marketplace where, cannabis could be sold legally in the state.

But there were some, you know, growing pains, if you'll excuse the pun.

right now.

And we talked about it at the top a little bit.

Here's what James Pepper, the Cannabis Control Board chair, had to say about, some of the issues regarding, licenses and what's happening with cannabis in Vermont.

You can't get a bank loan to start a cannabis company.

You can't have a line of credit to make ends meet at the end of the month.

you know, if you're kind of short on cash, you don't have bankruptcy protection.

you know, you have to pay a exorbitant taxes.

You can't write off the normal, you know, business expenses that you would if you were any other business.

And so, you know, you compile all of those kind of you stack all those up, and it's kind of a very challenging market.

So there are some of the challenges that James Pepper was talking about.

Sasha Goldstein, you've been writing about this, in seven days.

And, October 1st was when the marketplace actually opened two years ago.

there's problems with oversaturation.

I guess the Burlington, Burlington area, Chittenden County has a lot of these stores, but other places not so much.

What are some of the issues that they're dealing with?

Yeah.

When when this market opened two years ago, almost to the day, there were three stores for the entire state, and now we have 90 across the state, 90 licensed.

so, at this point, the Cannabis Control Board, which regulates the industry, is kind of saying, let's take a look at where these are and how they're doing and assess and make rules about where they can be.

now, like you said, in Burlington alone, there are 13 licensed shops.

Now, Burlington is a city of 45,000 people, a lot of tourism, but I don't think anyone believes 13 stores is the right amount.

So, the Cannabis Control Board is kind of in an interesting position because when the market started, they were kind of advocates for the for the market.

And now they have to put on kind of the regulator hat and say, how do we make this market fair and equitable?

Spread it out across the state.

So they want to, disperse where these stores are located.

It's going to be a difficult thing to do because, you know, in business you don't want to open in a place that doesn't have a big consumer base.

So Burlington is very appealing.

Rutland is very appealing.

But they're also seeing three stores in Derby or Brandon or some of these smaller towns.

So they're wondering why is that happening?

They want to take a pause in accepting new applications for retail stores and, and take a look at where and how these stores are opening.

Some folks are upset, though, about that temporary moratorium on these new licenses.

And I understand that one location, again, we said there's a lot in Burlington, but one location has closed in Burlington, right?

Yes, there's a store, kind of near City Market downtown in Burlington, called grass Queen that's planning to close at the end of the month.

And the owner cited, the saturated market and the the fees as well.

Now, when these stores open, they pay a $10,000 license to the state just for the privilege of opening.

And they have to pay that, year in, year out.

So there are, as James Pepper, the chair of the board, described many costs affiliated with this.

So when you're in a market with a lot of other businesses, you either have to cut costs by bringing in more customers.

You have to find ways to do it in a industry that's super expensive.

I am so interested in this question of demand, as you were saying, you know, Burlington, there's demand there.

is there sort of, anecdotally speaking, demand for cannabis shops in some of the more remote areas of Vermont?

I think so when you talk to the regulators, they say, you know, it's not people in Burlington aren't the only ones who are smoking cannabis or consuming cannabis.

This is a statewide thing where people, do and the example James Pepper used when I spoke to him about it was something like new, Newbury.

And he said, that's a very rural town.

And he wondered if there's a way that the board can create rules that might allow, like a general store, not just a standalone shop, to exist.

So like, a general store could have a corner that's cordoned off from, from people under 21, but it would allow some of these more rural places to get into the game and serve customers so they don't have to be driving many minutes away.

How's the revenue looking so far from this?

Yeah.

So, through we have numbers through July and there's been about $200 million in sales so far, which is a pretty staggering number.

And when you consider to, the, the state is pulling in a 14% excise tax off all of those sales in addition to the 6% sales tax.

So the state is coming up with, you know, tens of millions of dollars as a result of, of the market.

The other thing that I think is so interesting about this is and in the clip that you just showed, Mr. Pepper alluded to this, but one of the other factors in basically what's working against these shops, and their business models is they have no access to federal funding as well.

So for any shops or growing operations that were affected by the floods these past two years, for example, not so much a concern in Burlington, but say in Montpelier Barre, certainly, no FEMA money, no SBA loans, Small Business Administration loans to help recover from disaster.

and no U.S. Department of Agriculture funds, for emergencies.

And then what I'm really watching for, I would say in all of this, is who are going to be the winners and losers in all of this.

I mean, in the larger conversation on, legalizing marijuana, there's been so much talk, and especially in Vermont, there's been, I would say, probably a really concerted effort to utilize legal, the legal marijuana market as, a way to almost offer reparations to populations that have been, you know, disproportionately incarcerated for drug use over the years.

and are is in terms of who's going to come out as a winner and loser in this.

I'm really interested to see.

I mean, you mentioned grass Queen is closing.

That's exactly a great point because they the state did offer these social equity licenses, for people who have been harmed by the war on drugs, they also offered social empowerment licenses, which were for women and, other groups.

And this cannabis dispensary that's closing in Burlington is women owned and she made a point of, of, of saying that when I spoke to her that it felt like she was at a disadvantage right out of the gate.

A couple more quick points.

I want to ask about this.

as Sarah was referring to Sasha, correct me if I'm wrong that that problem with the federal dollars and access and all that is that because cannabis marijuana is still considered a schedule one drug on the federal level?

Yeah, absolutely.

Meaning the same as, like, heroin and cocaine and harder drugs.

Exactly.

And there's been some talk about rescheduling it that's kind of a longer process.

But there has been indication from the federal government they do want to do that.

That would also allow there's I can't remember the exact name, but there is a tax write off that you can have access to as a small business owner that cannabis dispensaries and cannabis businesses cannot, access because of the federally class one.

status.

And briefly, what is the I know that the goal of setting up this, cannabis retail marketplace in Vermont was to emphasize and give aid to smaller growers.

Is that generally working to this point?

I think the the board would say so right now, they've actually closed all of the different tiers of growing and have left it open only to tier one, which is the smallest growing tier.

So I think that's been the idea, as have these small growers, lots of them being able to get into the marketplace instead of having a tier five, which is the max, which is very large, and I think there's only about one of those in the entire state.

Thank you very much for catching us up on that.

I want to turn to another story that, was alluded to at the top here.

It's pretty sad.

Liam, you've been covering this, Vermont's Catholic diocese has filed for bankruptcy protection.

This is an order to, they say, make payments to people who have been victims of sexual abuse.

What's the status of that story?

So what?

This means it's going to be a long process.

So the diocese filed for what's called chapter 11 bankruptcy, known as reorganization.

Bankruptcy.

And essentially what they're saying is we have the funds to continue to operate like our normal operations, but we don't have the money to deal with all of these civil lawsuits that we're facing right now about, clergy sex abuse.

and they're facing more than two dozen, I think it's 31 right now.

And there could be more coming.

This is dating back years, right?

This dating back many years.

there's a little bit of history.

Obviously, back in the early 2000, the Boston Globe published a series of stories revealing, systemic abuse by priests in the Catholic Church and how the church covered that up.

And this all kind of stems from that, that reporting and people coming forward.

And in Vermont since 2006, the diocese in, in Burlington has paid more than $30 or $30 million.

Excuse me?

To settle claims of sexual abuse by priests.

So they're concerned that there's so many more of these cases that they're facing that they don't have money to sell, settle all of those, or one big jury verdict in one of those cases would wipe out all their ability to compensate other survivors of sexual abuse.

But attorneys for the victims are saying that this kind of lets the diocese off the hook in a way.

What are they talking about when they when they say that?

Well, there's a few concerns there.

One being that it would allow less accountability for the church.

They don't really get to go into questioning the church officials, getting all the documents, the discovery that you'd normally get in a civil lawsuit and, settlement amounts would likely be smaller because what would happen is the the court, the bankruptcy process would sort of determine what all the survivors and people that still need to be compensated for their civil suits, what they would get.

And then, you know, there's just concern, too, that there would be, what's called a bar date, where at some point, survivors of sexual abuse wouldn't be able to file more civil suits.

The process would essentially sort of halt, at a certain point, more people being able to say, hey, this is something that happened to me and I would like, you know, to have some sort of compensation or reckoning with it.

And I guess some of the stories that people are willing to talk about won't be told.

in this instance too.

Right, right.

And so it's unclear how all of that is still going to play out.

I mean, but those are some of the big concerns that attorneys who are representing people who are bringing these sex abuse lawsuits under the diocese are facing.

yeah.

And it was sort of a 2019, statute in, in Vermont, a rule change that allowed the statute of limitations to be lifted on these cases that kind of opened this floodgate to it.

And I know the Catholic Church, I believe, has been trying to sell some properties to come up with some cash.

I know they've had some issues with, their insurance provider saying they're not going to cover some of these things.

So again, yeah, I think survivors are feeling like this is a little bit, like they're kind of getting out of full accountability on this.

You have to wonder, too, about the future of the Roman Catholic diocese in Vermont.

I mean, where does this leave them?

It's a lot of money.

And we hear stories about, you know, fewer people getting involved in religion, younger people.

It doesn't seem to be a good situation for the church as far as continuing in the way they would want to.

Yeah, there are fewer, I believe, fewer practicing Catholics.

I guess maybe in the state of Vermont, there's also fewer parishes than there have been.

They've closed down, parishes.

They've consolidated parishes over the years.

and, you know, so the health of the the organization of a as a whole is certainly in question here.

And I think, you know, they're probably concerned that, you know, if they need to figure out a way to settle all of these cases and also still be able to continue to operate when they're already facing sort of these larger existential struggles, as a, as a church.

Thanks for the reporting on that, Liam.

I want to turn now to, political stories.

And, Sarah, you have been writing about, Republican Governor Phil Scott is he is seeking another term.

He's doing something a little different now, I guess for him, where he's getting out and stopping for more candidates.

Right.

And what is that effort?

All about?

Yeah.

So the way that it's been put to me is that he is campaigning harder than he has in years.

even his campaign manager told me that harder than he has, or did in 2016 when he was even running for his first term for governor.

but it's not for himself.

He is out hitting the campaign trail on behalf of all these down ballot, mostly Republican candidates.

So far, I believe he has officially endorsed one Democratic, House candidate, incumbent Representative Jay Hooper, from the Randolph area.

But other than that, really, it's it's for Republicans and the whole kind of, ethos and strategy here is that he is campaigning to break the Democratic supermajority in the legislature.

we've covered so often on this show, the many, many vetoes of Governor Phil Scott and the many, many veto overrides of the legislature, particularly in these past two years, as they they've had this very strong two thirds supermajority of Democrats in both the House and the Senate.

And so I think really the question, that Scott is kind of reckoning with is that will his agenda, prevail if the makeup of the legislature remains as it is?

and it seems that he's making the bet that, it will at least be a lot more likely to be successful.

His agenda, that is, if he can get more Republicans in the legislature.

Do you think he saw a window of opportunity with sort of the shock slash outrage over property taxes, all the school budgets that were voted down?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean, that's one of the like, major talking points that I'm hearing both from him.

And then, you know, pretty much this entire slate of candidates that are running down ballot.

Also, the Vermont Republican Party is really going hard on that point.

I attended, a campaign event, where I covered a campaign event for Sam Douglas, the Orleans County, Republican candidate who's up against Representative Katherine Simms for, outgoing Senator Bobby Starr's seat.

and at the, the foreground of this event, they had these posters where it said in like, really big, bold red lettering, you know, Groton property taxes up and it gave a percentage point and, you know, it named these different municipalities.

And then it said in these big letters, ask why?

there is clearly a kind of ultimatum that is being presented, to voters this year.

And one of the candidates, the governor, I believe, is stumping for is, the, the lieutenant governor hopeful, John Rogers.

Right.

And, we had a lieutenant governor's debate, recently.

you know, it's interesting he's going up against David Zuckerman, a well-known name, of course, in Vermont.

it can be difficult maybe sometimes to find, differing, stances.

given lieutenant governor doesn't have a lot of power in Vermont.

But here's what, the candidates had to say recently on the issue of homelessness.

Homelessness is a huge issue.

And one of the things that I'm really worried about is with all the additional cost of living that the legislators heaped onto Vermonters, that we're going to have more homeless people with the homeless population that is already out there, we need to make sure that we have interagency cooperation and that we're trying to serve their needs.

We know many of them have mental health needs and substance abuse needs.

And so there's a lot of work to be done.

I don't profess to have all the answers, but it would be one of my main missions is to make sure that the folks who are suffering the most at the bottom of the so-called food chain have what they need to survive.

There's a number of issues here.

One is that, we do have an affordable housing crisis.

it's not just, because of policies of the legislature.

Frankly, this is happening all across the country.

We happen to be a very, desirable place to live.

we have a huge population to our south that can afford to buy homes here.

We know with Covid, migration, political migration, climate, migration, huge demand is coming into Vermont.

and that's really disrupted our supply and demand balance.

We know that just materials and labor make housing unaffordable, and therefore you have to buy down that cost with covenants to create permanently affordable housing that can appreciate and value so that low income people can start to have asset value.

Okay.

I'll let those, candidates statements stand for themselves.

People can decide what they think about that issue.

I'm just curious what everybody here thinks about that race itself.

I mean, David Zuckerman has has won a lot of, races before John Rogers, a pretty well-known name.

what are we thinking here about the chances for?

Would it be a Rogers upset if he won?

Let's put it that way, Sasha.

I think so.

Just because of, David Zuckerman.

You know, long time service.

He's run for governor before as, the Democratic nominee.

You know, the name recognition in a race like that is is is a big thing.

I know a lot of us political observers, I think, know John Rogers pretty well, and I think he's pretty well known in his, district.

But I think it's a little, more difficult to get out and kind of get out there across the state.

Sarah.

Well, I mean, to be clear, any, ousting of an incumbent in Vermont would be really an upset.

Vermont tends to be quite loyal to its incumbents, even more so than in other states, I would say.

But, one of the things that I find so fascinating about this race, in particular is that Rogers is really hammering on this point of affordability, as is the governor, as are all of these down ballot Republican candidates.

When we know that so many economic factors are, you know, handle on the national stage, right.

Take our fuel oil prices.

you know, I think there's a tendency to kind of point to the clean heat standard, which isn't even in effect yet in Vermont.

really the rate hikes that we've been seeing so far on fuel prices have largely been, you know, global factors at play.

Right.

And so that's one of the things that I find so interesting is this, strategy to I don't know if I'd say capitalize on larger economic woes, but let's be clear that there's a lot more at play than just in Vermont.

We are far from the only state that's reckoning with the housing crisis, with the fuel crisis, etc.. And Liam, how do you feel?

the governor is sort of stumping for Rogers that may help him.

Do you think it could be something to get some over the top?

I don't know, I think I actually this was something I was thinking about.

Sarah, when you're talking about the governor stumping for down ballot races in general, I'm not I am not sure how much his support and stumping will actually translate to people voting for those candidates.

we didn't really see that happen in the primary.

Obviously, it's a very different election in a primary than the general election, but I don't think we actually have a good sense of how much Governor Phil Scott's stumping for any of these candidates is going to translate to people voting.

He's a popular governor, but we've seen this before, where Vermonters tend to split their votes.

They're going to vote for Phil Scott, a Republican, and then vote for Dave Zuckerman, who's a Democrat and progressive.

I just I think it'll want to wait and see what happens.

But I'm not totally convinced that there's going to be a help there.

Well, especially in the year when the let's be clear, the top Republican leading the ticket is not Governor Phil Scott, it's former President Donald Trump.

And that down ballot effect is something that I'm is surely going to have an impact on the success rate of some of these down ballot candidates and the case.

I think that in a state like Vermont, which, you know, gave President Joe Biden his largest margin of victory in the nation, the real challenge thing for these down ballot Republicans is to make the case of I'm not a Trump Republican in the state of Vermont, except in some, you know, more conservative.

I'm always fascinated about that question, you know, because Vermont does seem sometimes a little insular with that.

But, you know, will that have an effect?

Liam, I know that you were watching the, recent House debate that we had with Representative Beck, on balance, and, the challenger who, you know, may have come off, as somebody who was a little bit in MAGA world.

It was a very strange, debate that we actually had there.

Yeah, it was a contentious debate.

I think, the GOP challenger, Mark, Kuster, he's challenging Democratic incumbent, Representative Beck a ballot.

they pretty much disagreed about everything, possible.

you know, from abortion to climate change to, foreign policy, just, the role of the federal government in the housing crisis.

You know, Becca ballot wants the governor, the federal government to do more to help with, building housing across the nation.

And, Mark Christopher says the federal government has no role to play in that.

Christopher doesn't believe that carbon emissions cause climate change back a ballot is very much, you know, believes that is the case and is in support of the Green New Deal.

almost everything they disagree on.

And it was it was a lively and contentious debate to say the least.

Yeah.

Pretty stark choices, I think.

Yes.

From there, I want to mention briefly, that the, Goddard College sale, another sad story that fell through.

There were some plans for housing there to deal with.

That campus will have to wait and see, I guess.

What what happens with that?

Right.

There's no new buyer yet.

Yeah, the board of trustees said that were they're exploring alternative options.

this is the second buyer to fall through.

This was a group led by alumni and faculty who who wanted to develop the property into some housing and tech startups and a variety of other things, but they couldn't get the money together for the $3.4 million or 4 million.

Buy it.

Try, try again.

All right.

we saved the biggest story, for last today.

and you know, look, it's been a rough month.

Maybe you can say it's been a rough year.

So we want to let you know about what's happening in Whitehall, New York recently.

And, Joey Palumbo and Andrea Lauren, producers went out to Whitehall where there was a Sasquatch calling contest.

Here's how it went down.

You know, Sasquatch is a is a beloved kind of entity here in Whitehall, and it's given us this opportunity to create a festival.

So it's a really it's kind of a really special subject for Whitehall.

It's it's become part of the town.

The town has really embraced it.

The festival was actually started by a man named, Dave Molinaro.

He had the idea for a, Sasquatch calling contest after hearing about a mosquito calling contest.

But he thought, hey, if they have a mosquito calling contest, there's no way we can't have a Sasquatch calling contest.

And the people, we all live in our own bubble.

So of course, there's things out there that we don't know or that we don't see on a daily basis.

But.

Life with the possibility of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster is far superior to one without.

When the aliens came and built the pyramids, they took the Sasquatch and, spliced the DNA, combining it with the alien DNA.

And that's where humans came from.

It's that one piece, something in our community that kind of bonds everyone together.

They all really enjoy it.

I think it's just the idea that such a small community can bring such a large impact to such a big group of people.

Like, there's people from Alaska here, and we're like, you're on it.

You're here for that.

You're in Whitehall, New York for Sasquatch, and and that just really shocked people.

It's that whole like, put yourself on the map kind of situation.

And then tell everybody you want to to up.

Oh, oh, y'all ready to give us your best Sasquatch call or not?

Yeti.

Sasha, go!

Whoo!

Whoo hoo!

Sarah Mearhoff,I saved that for my closest friends.

Thank you.

Liam Elder Connors.

Hey, Sasquatch, get over here, I love it.

See, he doesn't have good cell service out there in Whitehall, so you just got to call him.

Thank you all for our panel for being here.

Im Mitch Wertlieb.

I hope I'm back next week for Vermont this week.

Have a great week.

In the meantime.