(birds chirping) (hooves clopping) - I feel like we're at a place right now where there's a lot of focus on the state, and people are kind of unsure of where we're headed, where are we gonna go?

- [Eddie] It's been very stressful the past couple months.

- That uncertainty has become a crescendo.

- Texas legislature election session kicked in and has a lot of challenges for us.

- [Dina] Somebody may think Gulf Coast shrimp, like, what's the big deal?

- [Nikki] It's too hard to make a living out here.

- [Dina] There's something deeper there.

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♪ I saw miles and miles of Texas ♪ It's all part of our commitment to preserving the future of Texas and supporting our Texas Neighbors.

(gentle music) - [Announcer] Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation is dedicated to conserving the wild things and wild places in Texas.

Learn more at tpwf.org.

(uplifting music) (water sloshes) - I do think a lot about dying industries where there's a lot of fear because you just don't know what is around the corner.

- Good morning from the St.

Vincent.

Good morning from the St.

Vincent.

Texas Shrimp Diva here.

Texas Shrimp Diva.

Look at that bad ol' hair.

- [Dina] And then I see somebody like Nikki who's actually helping to change things.

It's important to know there's these little pieces of hope.

- [Nikki] Lord, I don't know what kind of trouble we're gonna get into, but we'll see y'all soon.

- I'm Dina Gachman, and I wrote the story "Can the Texas Shrimp Diva Save a Dying Industry?"

Going into it, I thought this was gonna be a story about this fun woman breaking into a male-dominated industry.

And then I got kind of a deeper look at who she is and why she's doing it.

You know, this isn't just like this cutesy thing that's, "I just wanna be cute on the internet."

Like, that's not what this is.

This is a woman who's working really hard and really deeply cares about something and is doing something about it, which is more that I can say for a lot of us.

I went and met her in Galveston early one Saturday morning.

I had never been on a shrimping boat.

I had no clue what to expect.

Being out there, it's almost like stepping into another world.

(birds squawking) So the Shrimp Diva is Nikki Johnson-Kunz.

She's from Virginia originally, but came to Texas, moved to El Paso, and then now she's in League City.

She worked in property management.

She didn't know anything about shrimp boats until she met her husband, Jason, and Jason's father, Pops, AKA, Captain Jerome, he's been shrimping since he was 10.

- I started shrimping with Pops in 2018 and started a Facebook page to post videos of Captain Jerome and I bringing in the shrimp to show people how hard it is.

My father-in-law, we call him Pops.

He's 92 years old.

We believe that he's the oldest working shrimper in the country.

- [Dina] Pops is definitely the "Old Man in the Sea" situation.

I mean, he's hunched over.

He's got his overalls.

He really is this generation that could wake up at 5:00 AM, they could go out there, they could shrimp and could support a family.

Pops was like that for many, many, many years.

Pops raised a family of 10 on a shrimper's salary.

Now, that is definitely not necessarily the case.

- I'm 92 years old.

I was 10 years old when my daddy started fishing.

I've been here ever since.

Seen a lot of changes, I'll tell you that.

Yeah, boy.

- [Dina] Newer generations, like all of his kids, none of them wanted to to go into this because it's hard.

Jason will go on the boat, but he has a whole separate career, and you see that all across the state.

The younger generations don't necessarily want to break their backs for very little money.

I think the main challenge is that there's so much overseas shrimp coming in that's so much cheaper.

Gulf Coast shrimp prices are being driven down so low even compared to when Nikki started the Texas Shrimp Diva.

- It's too hard to make a living out here.

That's why these 30 boats went to six.

- This is her life's purpose right now, raising awareness for an industry that's kind of going out the door.

- Good morning, everybody.

It is the night before Christmas Eve, and I'm buying shrimp.

Yes, I work on a shrimp boat, but I don't have the size that I need.

So check this out.

Product of Indonesia.

See that guys?

Ooh, nope.

Even the shelf knows it doesn't want it.

Oh my God.

- Because of the Diva of it all, the pink and the fun side that she's bringing to it, people are with something like shrimping, which they may not necessarily do.

- Right now, we have about 72,000 followers.

We had 5 million views the last 28 days.

Okie dokie, let's do a little quick video.

Good morning from the St.

Vincent.

This morning at 6:20, we've already thrown the net over.

In about 20 minutes, we're gonna pull in the net.

We're gonna unload everything into this box right here.

And, Lord, I don't know what kind of trouble we're gonna get into, but we'll see you all soon.

- They're out there hauling it in and doing the hard work, and then some restaurant can just bypass them and go for something cheaper.

Part of the issue too was that restaurants would mislabel and put on their menu or advertise outside their restaurant that they have Gulf Coast shrimp when they don't.

- One of the things that bothers us, you have all of these restaurants in Galveston.

They're saying that they serve wild Gulf shrimp, but the facts are they're imported shrimp.

And if you have to sell imported shrimp, fine, do it.

Whatever you have to do to make a living.

- [Pops] But don't lie about it.

- Yeah.

- Don't tell the people, the public, they think they get shrimp out the Gulf, and they get farm-raised shrimp from India.

- When I went on the boat with her, there weren't a lot of regulations in place.

So restaurants and fish markets would say local, but that local is thousands of miles away.

That actually may hurt the economics of our local shrimpers, and it happens way more often than people think.

There's a company called SeaD who developed a method of genetic testing where they can test shrimp and actually see if they are Gulf Coast shrimp.

- What we do is, depending on the contract we have, we either do 44 or 24 restaurants in a marketplace.

We collect all the data about the restaurant.

We then go ahead and sample.

The Gulf is not thriving, and it's all down to people assuming they're eating product and helping the shrimp industry, and then they're not getting the product they ordered.

- So they tested 44 samples in Galveston and Kemah and 26 came back that they were labeled Gulf Coast, but they were not.

So that's a huge number.

- What we want to do is make consumers aware of the situation that's going on in the market, and we also want to encourage restaurants to have some integrity because if every pound of gulf shrimp that was served was actually Gulf shrimp, our industry would be so buoyant it would be unbelievable.

And right now we're not, and that's unfortunate.

- Somebody may think Gulf Coast shrimp, like, what's the big deal?

But it really is.

Galveston was very much a part of my childhood.

We went to Galveston all the time.

I mean, whether it was with friends, I caught my first fish there.

There's not a vacation, I went to Padre or Galveston, where we're not getting shrimp.

I mean, that's just what you do.

Once it's gone and say we get all of our shrimp from overseas, then this lifestyle that so many people actually really love will no longer be.

You give up on that completely.

Not only are you giving up on the people and a way of life, but something that is kind of unique to us.

So Nikki and other people in the shrimping industry, a big part of what they're trying to do is push for the laws to change.

- Committee substitute Senate Bill 823, relaying the labeling and representation of imported shrimp.

- This is the Shrimp Bill.

- So they put forth a bill to change it so that restaurants would have to accurately label or there would be a fine.

This was championed by representative Terri Leo-Wilson and people like Nikki who were talking about it and posting about it.

- Don't eat imported shrimp, or this is what will happen to you.

(laughs) - Senator Middleton recognized for motion.

- Move to final passage.

- Secretary will call the roll.

- Alvarado, Bedcourt, Burwell- - 28 ayes, 3 nays.

The bill is finally passed.

- Senate Bill 823 passed.

And that requires restaurants to accurately label their shrimp.

So they can't say it's Gulf Coast and local if it's not, or else they'll get a fine.

And so that goes into effect September 1st, 2025.

So the bill passing is definitely positive.

I don't know if it'll solve all the issues going on with the shrimping industry, but it's a hugely positive change.

I think not knowing where things are headed can be very scary because you don't have any control over it.

And then I see somebody like Nikki who's devoted all her time and effort to trying to preserve one specific industry, which is huge.

It can give you some hope.

(contemplative music) (air swooshes) - There was something in him which said, "That's not who you are.

That's not the story for you.

Your destiny is something else."

And he followed that to the point of taking enormous risk.

There was always an uncertainty about this, but that uncertainty has become a crescendo.

My name is Russell Gold.

I'm a staff writer at "Texas Monthly," and I profiled Eddie Velez, who is a hemp farmer in Oak Cliff.

On December 4th of Lieutenant Governor put out a statement basically saying that one of his priorities for the upcoming legislative session was a bill that's gonna ban the sale of any kind of tetra-cannabinoid, delta-eight, delta-nine, THCA.

I write about business topics for "Texas Monthly," and in 2019, Texas legalized hemp production and sales.

I wanted to learn more about this new business that was emerging because there were so many questions.

What's legal?

What's not legal?

What did a Texas cannabis business look like?

And the best way to do that was to find someone involved with the business.

And so I met a cannabis farmer, Eddie Velez, and realized that for him, this was so much more than just a business story.

Eddie Velez was born and raised in Oak Cliff, which going back to the 1980s and 1990s, Oak Cliff was one of the poor neighborhoods in Dallas.

- This is like the heart of Oak Cliff, this area is where everybody comes and hangs out.

- Growing up, Eddie's father was a drug dealer.

That's how the family paid the bills, that's how they put food on the table.

And one day he was arrested and sent to prison for that.

- My childhood kind of just kind of just drifted away right there.

So me and my brother, you know, we had to become a little bit more responsible a little faster than everybody else.

- It broke up the family.

His mom had to raise him and his brother by herself, had to go on welfare for a little while, and they really struggled with that.

Eddie graduated from high school in Oak Cliff and served several years in the Marines.

Used his GI benefits to go to the University of North Texas and got a degree in emergency management and was working for FEMA for a while, jumping into major responses whenever there was an emergency.

And after Hurricane Harvey, he realized he needed a new start.

So in 2018, the federal government first passes the farm bill, and they made hemp legal.

Texas and many other states followed suit.

Eddie really responded when he heard that Texas had legalized hemp.

As he put it to me, he's always been a connoisseur of the plant, and if this was going to be a new business, he wanted to be part of it.

- [Eddie] I worked for the federal government for 15 years, and I felt like I had the background and knowledge to follow the rules and be compliant and to be successful in that.

- Of course, he talked to his wife, Martha.

She was very resistant.

They had both grown up in Oak Cliff and when she thought about marijuana, all she thought about was gangs and violence, and she didn't wanna have anything to do with it, but she was having some health issues at the time and tried CBD, a derivative of hemp and really found it beneficial.

- He took me into my first CBD store, and then fast forward five years later, I don't have chronic migraines, I have no migraines, and I feel like I'm a happier and healthier person because of it.

- Her change of heart kind of reflected how this market's changing and evolving.

Because as more and more people come to that realization, more and more people are open to trying CBD.

- I quit my job at FEMA, I cashed out my retirement, and then we jumped into the cannabis industry in Texas.

We were one of the first 100 growers to get a license here in the state.

- In October 2020, he was ready to do his first harvest.

His mother and his father were there, and he told me that after so many years where his family had been broken up by drug sales, that now they were doing this and they were doing it legally.

- We all cut down the plant together.

For me, that signifies a full circle.

That's redemption for us.

- Then in 2021, they opened up their retail store, Oak Cliff Cultivators, to sell directly to the public.

A lot of customers when they came in, they wanted to know, "What is this?

Is this legal?"

Eddie realized he needed to introduce people to what these new products were and why they should be interested.

- [Eddie] Our biggest thing is education.

There's a lot of people who were curious about cannabis.

They don't know where to start.

- And so he's figuring his way through this just like any other entrepreneur except his product is cannabis.

Eddie Velez had really invested a huge amount of blood, sweat and tears, time and money into this business, and, you know, after a slow start it was really working.

He had made a successful business, and then comes the press release.

Texas really doesn't know what it wants to do right now with cannabis products.

Do we just shut it all down?

Do we regulate it?

I guess that's what we're gonna find out in 2025.

And folks like Eddie Velez are gonna be watching with quite a bit of interest.

I mean, you're basically waiting for them to tell you whether your business can keep going or not, right?

- Yeah, you know, Texas legislature selection session kicked in and has a lot of challenges for us.

Are you familiar with the bills currently?

- Tell me about them.

- So Senate Bill 3 essentially bans all forms of THC.

- It was very clear the Texas Senate had THC in their crosshairs.

- We thought it was just gonna be limits, but this was like completely eliminated industry.

- Lieutenant Governor did not want to take that nuanced approach that let's regulate the industry.

He decided he just wanted to shut the entire industry down.

- So I testified against Senate Bill 3 when it was up at the Senate, you know, just pretty much saying how that shuts down businesses, you know, even from a farmer perspective.

- And from that point on, the only question really was, would the house go along with it?

- The house made their own bill, House Bill 28, that essentially bans anything but a beverage.

Any edibles, any smokables, vapes.

I mean, everything on our shelves in our store that you've been into, completely out.

- Eduardo Velez, Texas Hemp Coalition and self.

And you are against the bill, is that correct?

- [Eddie] That is correct, sir.

- Please proceed.

- Allowing only beverages and banning edibles would completely shut down my business.

The consumers want options, not just want product.

Not only are they gonna shut down a lot of businesses, but a lot of us has commercial leases and employees.

You know, we're gonna break leases, we're gonna have to lay off employees as a ripple effect.

So I think they heard that message.

- You're basically saying you wanna see it regulated but not cut it down and end this.

It'll be interesting to see whether folks like Eddie Velez can still make a go of it because they're not fly by night.

They're trying to create products that people can believe in, that don't skirt the law and jump through loopholes, but are legal under both federal and state law.

- [Eddie] There's no one telling us 21 and over.

There is no regulation for that.

A lot of us self-regulate.

That simple regulation, just implementing that, it's gonna eliminate a lot of problems in the state of Texas.

- You've kind of become an advocate.

You come down to Austin a lot to talk to lawmakers.

- Yeah, so I'm the president of the Texas Hemp Coalition.

They voted me in, I think it was around February timeframe, and so I've been serving that capacity since then.

We can protect consumers and preserve the industry that's creating jobs, empowering veterans, and giving Texans more control over their wellness.

But that won't happen with House Bill 28.

- You know, when I first started working on this story, I was not looking for someone who I thought was gonna be the big face of legalized hemp, the head of the Texas Hemp Coalition.

It's just fascinating to see him grow and take on this role.

- Here I am navigating the waters of a total ban in the state of Texas.

We thought we had sound policy.

Even the house members were in agreement with this.

Everybody was agreeing with this.

We did all these back and forth conversations, and we had a workable amendment for the industry, but then- - Let's be clear.

No social good comes from the legalization of intoxicants.

What began in 2019 is a bipartisan effort to support Texas agriculture has since been hijacked by a cottage industry of unregulated THC sellers.

- I wasn't at the capitol when they voted, so I was watching it on TV, me and my wife, and when we saw that happen, we just felt like there's nothing we could do to educate or there was nothing we could say for them to hear us.

- This substitute bans the sale of all consumable hemp products that contain THC.

We are not banning hemp.

We are banning high.

(gavel bangs) - We were just kind of like, "Oh my God, this is gonna happen.

The ban's here."

- There is no waiting around and seeing what happens in a couple of years.

There's no way through this with only CBD.

The space that we're in, what we're going to do with it is we're converting it into a bar.

I wanna save my employee's jobs.

That's it.

- We're already talking to employees about letting them go.

We're talking to our landlord about breaking our lease.

We're trying to accept the fact that this was going into law.

- It's more than just a business for him.

Eddie is fighting against 50 years of the cannabis plant being completely outlawed and criminalized.

He's trying to claw back a piece of that and say, "Well, wait a second.

There's some real positives here."

It's really about flipping the narrative.

- SB 3 is sitting on the governor's desk right now.

It's ready for him to either sign into law or veto.

You know, we're hoping for a veto, and we're really encouraging him to veto this bill.

We knew the governor had til 11:59 PM to sign the bill.

When we saw it happen online, we were shocked.

It came in at the last minute, 11:24, and he vetoed the bill.

We collected over 14,000 handwritten letters and we delivered that to the governor.

Over 100,000 petitions were signed.

That's why we made the shirt Powered by the People because it was the state of Texas citizens who spoke up.

(chill music) (people chattering) Right now, we have a small reprieve.

We're trying to celebrate the win.

Take a little small break and enjoy it while we can.

- Hey.

- How you doing?

- [Eddie] But the fight's still not over.

- I'm sure people like Eddie Velez are breathing a sigh of relief.

The experiment continues, but it's only a temporary reprieve.

- We're right back where we started in February.

The governor called a special session.

Thank you, chairman and members of the committee.

My name's Eddie Velez, and I'm the president of the Texas Hemp Coalition.

Texans don't want a ban.

We want fair policies.

We want to prevent underage access.

And the governor's already saying it's gonna go right into another special session.

We haven't made anything new since we started session because we didn't know if it was gonna be banned or what our THC limits are gonna be.

So we've been just kind of waiting.

What we're looking for is a clear lane.

Without a clear lane, we're always working in limbo and in challenges.

- You know, this has become one of the hottest issues in the legislature this year.

What's the future of THC?

What's the future of cannabis in Texas?

It's hard to say.

- Since you came over here to video this, there has been multiple raids in Dallas at distributors.

- It's insane.

I got my kids watching hemp shops get raided on the news and my kids are asking, "Are we doing something wrong?

You know, like, "Are we gonna be safe?

Are you gonna be safe, Dad?

Are they gonna take you to jail?"

I'm like, "No, we're doing everything the right way."

The uncertainty, it's been very stressful the past couple months.

- Uncertainty for a small businessman like Eddie is really, really difficult.

And if you don't know what the state's doing, what the rules of the road are gonna be, how can you plan ahead?

How can you have a business?

(gentle contemplative music) - [Dina] I think that we're in a place where there's a lot of focus on the state, and people are kind of unsure of where we're headed.

Part of the uncertainty is like, what is our identity now?

What do we want to preserve?

What do we want to change?

- We don't know what the future's gonna be, you know?

Welcome to Texas in 2025.

He just faces these challenges and figures out and how to keep going.

- I love telling these kind of stories, meeting people like Nikki, because more often than not, there's something deeper there that I think people can relate to.

- Since I was a kid, I've always loved the idea of being in a band and making something and seeing these kids coming here to Austin and coming together in this band.

Why am I just now hearing about it?

(playful music) This is the story.

♪ I love it ♪ - We're on the precipice of a great discovery.

(energetic music) ♪ I love it ♪ - Fasten your seatbelt.

(dramatic music) - [Speaker] As long as we're together, it's perfect.

- [Speaker] Love is not as simple as you seem to think.

- [Speaker] We're so close to cracking the case.

- Dreams do come through, aye lad?

- [Announcer] Major funding for this program was provided by: - [Announcer] At HEB, we're proud to offer over 6,000 products grown, harvested, or made by our fellow Texans.

♪ I saw miles and miles of Texas ♪ It's all part of our commitment to preserving the future of Texas and supporting our Texas neighbors.

(gentle music) - [Announcer] Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation is dedicated to conserving the wild things and wild places in Texas.

Learn more at tpwf.org.