AS EIGHT BILLS in this legislative session seek to increase the number of dispensaries or cannabis establishments that any one individual or organization can own, the cannabis industry remains divided on whether the Legislature should maintain the current cap of three. 

The state set the license cap in 2017 as a measure to keep large companies from monopolizing the cannabis industry and to protect small cannabis business owners – particularly those who come from communities harmed most by the war on drugs. 

Now, some cannabis operators are saying that the cap restricts their ability to run their businesses. Some cannabis business owners have argued that the Legislature needs to increase the license cap to allow struggling business owners to attract desperately needed capital from large multistate operators and provide an opportunity for them to sell their companies. 

The bills currently pending all seek to raise the license cap from three to either six or nine. One bill seeks to allow companies that have already reached a three-license limit to increase the amount of ownership stake they can have in four additional social equity businesses. 

On Wednesday, at the Legislature’s first cannabis committee hearing of the session, cannabis business owners and leaders spoke in favor of the bills to increase the cap. 

Payton Shubrick, the owner of 6 Bricks dispensary in Springfield, argued in favor of increasing the cap. She said that her business is family-owned and has faced headwinds with the falling price of marijuana since she opened the dispensary. Increasing the license cap will mean that larger companies will have more opportunities to buy up or invest in companies like hers, she testified. 

“At this point in time, I’m sitting on an asset that’s losing value over time with oversaturation and oversupply creating a dynamic where I can’t create a successful exit,” said Shubrick. 

The owner of Apex Noire – the first black-owned dispensary to open in Boston – and a former member of the Boston city council, Tito Jackson, also spoke in support of changing the license cap. 

“Increasing the license cap should be seen as a tool – one that business owners can use if they are able to,” said Jackson. “It does not mean that … everyone has to sell. However, not giving those individuals the options to do so is problematic.” 

Other cannabis business owners testified in opposition.  

“I can guarantee you that raising the cap will do the exact opposite of what other people have mentioned here,” said Ruben Seyde, the owner of Delivered, Inc., a cannabis delivery company. “It is not going to help [social equity businesses like mine]. It is only going to put me in a worse position than the one I am in right now. I am already struggling in this market. If these entities are able to double their resources by partnering up with [multistate operators] and other larger entities, I have no future. I have no viable road from my current to take and to still reach some level of profitability.” 

Ahead of the legislative hearing, nearly 60 business leaders and advocates in the cannabis industry signed a letter urging legislators to continue to cap the number of dispensaries any business can own at three. 

“If the license cap is removed, we’re going to see [multi-state cannabis businesses] gobbling up equity businesses, consolidating the market and devaluing the value of licenses for those who are in the industry,” said Kevin Gilnack, Deputy Director of the cannabis advocacy group Equitable Opportunities Now, in a phone interview ahead of the hearing. 

Kimberly Roy, a commissioner on the Cannabis Control Commission, submitted written testimony to the legislative committee in favor of maintaining the license cap.    

“Current statutory ownership limits help to create a Massachusetts cannabis industry that encourages full participation, competition, locally owned and operated entrepreneurship … while fostering a diverse marketplace,” said Roy. “Current proposals to lift the current license cap threaten to undermine these goals, harm those we are mandated to help and as a by-product may create a ‘Walmart effect’ supply chain where market consolidation, buying power and price manipulation can be controlled by the wealthy few.”  

The cannabis industry has been struggling with the falling price of marijuana and the lack of access to capital. Social equity business owners – who come from disadvantaged backgrounds and, by definition, have limited access to capital – have been particularly hit by debt and the challenges of the industry.  

Two bills that would double cannabis purchase and possession limits and make it easier for those who work in the cannabis industry to get registered received widespread support at the hearing. Currently, every person who works at a cannabis business must get a separate registration for every different licensed establishment. One person may need multiple registrations, which is costly for business owners. The industry widely supports making the change to streamline the process.  

Another bill would make it so that medical marijuana businesses no longer have to cultivate, process, and dispense cannabis to maintain their licenses. In addition to removing that requirement, the bill would also decrease the licensing fee for medical dispensaries and allow people from other states to use their medical marijuana cards at Massachusetts medical dispensaries.  

“​​We need to reinvest in the future of the program, and that means streamlining it, modernizing it, and removing the shackles that limit patient access and prevent equity [owners] from participating in the medical industry,” said Jeremiah MacKinnon, the president of the Massachusetts Patient Advocacy Alliance. “We brought these issues to the [Cannabis Control] Commission’s attention, but after six years of advocacy, nothing’s changed. It has not been on their list of priorities.”  

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MASSACHUSETTS INSPECTOR GENERAL Jeffrey Shapiro called on the Cannabis Control Commission to conduct an audit following the commission’s failure to collect approximately $550,000 in licensing fees since August 2022. 

In a letter to Travis Ahern, the newly appointed executive director, and Bruce Stebbins, the acting commission chair, Shapiro wrote that the agency’s failure to collect fees is an “egregious operational breakdown” that suggests “poor business practices and oversight.”  

In August 2024, the commission publicly admitted to failing to collect $555,671 in license renewal extension fees. The commissioners began to allow license extensions of up to 120 days in August 2022 and directed the staff to collect prorated license fees to cover the extension. The commission failed to collect those extension fees.  

Shapiro also found that the commission staff was granting extensions prior to the commission’s August 2022 vote without having the authority to do so. 

“The inability of CCC staff to implement a key commission initiative should have been readily apparent to supervisors and commissioners in real time,” Shapiro said in a press release. 

The commission has since corrected its mistake by recouping previously uncollected fees and updating the agency’s payment systems. Ahern said in an email statement that only $170,000 fees from the $550,000 remain uncollected as of this week.  

Shapiro said in his letter that the commission still needed to conduct an audit “to ensure that all current licensees have paid all applicable fees and fully understand what revenue went uncollected, as businesses ceased operations.”  

Ahern said that the commission is continuing to meet with the Inspector General’s office about the issues outlined in the letter and that the agency will provide a “more robust response” to the letter within the required 30 days.  

In August 2024, soon after the issue of uncollected fees became widely known, one commissioner, Kimberly Roy, called for a “forensic audit” of the agency. Forensic audits typically examine an organization’s financial records and look for fraud, misconduct, or irregularities. Roy pitched it as a way for the commission to modernize.  

In addition to those uncollected fees, Shapiro flagged that the commission had failed to collect up to $1.2 million in potential provisional licensing fees. Technically, no provisional licensee was able to move forward in the licensing process or become operational without paying the fees, but the commission’s policy does require that those fees be paid within 90 days of initial approval.  

Ahern said that “uncollected provisional application fees referenced in the OIG’s letter is subject to misinterpretation” and that “fees from provisionally approved applicants are only due if the applicants choose to proceed to final licensure.” 

Kevin Gilnack, president of the cannabis advocacy group Equitable Opportunities Now, said that $1.2 million claim seems “pretty sensational,” but it doesn’t seem like “any harm was caused by not enforcing it.” 

“No one can advance without paying the provisional fee [so] it doesn’t sound like the CCC was missing out of any fees,” said Gilnack.  

Last summer, Shapiro called on the Legislature to appoint a receiver and restructure the agency to clarify the leadership roles of the executive director and commission chair. Treasurer Deb Goldberg suspended and subsequently fired the commission’s previous chair, Shannon O’Brien, due to accusations of “racially, ethnically, and culturally insensitive statements.” Goldberg is the appointing authority for the commission chair role. 

O’Brien has alleged that she was fired for trying to rectify the dysfunction at the agency and is still actively fighting her dismissal in court. The commission has had internal conflict, allegations of misconduct, and a slow-moving regulatory process that has frustrated many within the cannabis industry. 

Shapiro said the time for a receiver has passed but that reform at the embattled agency is still necessary. The commission, he said, needs to work out the roles and responsibilities of the chair and executive director. “Until that issue is addressed, I fear that responsibility and accountability will continue to be elusive, and the Commission will struggle to gain its footing to chart a proper path forward,” Shapiro added. 

The commission has asked the Legislature for an increased amount – $30.8 million – in the state’s budget for the fiscal year 2026. This year, the commission operated with a $19.8 million budget.  

Ahern said that the increased budget will be crucial to helping the commission update its “outdated IT infrastructure” and “would address updates to the software that tracks and accounts for license and application fee payments.”  

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THE CANNABIS CONTROL Commission on Thursday extended the period of time that licenses for cannabis delivery are restricted to social equity applicants by one year but punted the decision on whether to extend further, citing a need for more data collection. 

Delivery licenses have been restricted to those who qualify for license categories targeted toward individuals impacted by the war on drugs during a 3-year “exclusivity period.” It’s approaching the end of that period, but social equity delivery businesses have argued that the exclusivity period must be extended because the commission has only last fall removed a cumbersome rule that mandated that every delivery must be completed by two drivers. Many in the industry have said that the two-driver rule made the business model unsustainable and that the period must be extended until the social equity businesses were able to be profitable.

The commission has until April 1, 2026, to make a decision on whether to extend the exclusivity period past the one-year extension that was voted on today. Commissioners need more data to see whether the goals of the exclusivity period – to promote the full participation in the cannabis industry delivery of people from communities that have previously been disproportionately harmed by marijuana prohibition – have been met in order to extend the exclusivity period further.

The commission faced criticism from the industry and even the state’s inspector general for how long it took for the two-driver rule to be removed.

“Chairman Hoffman said we were the guinea pigs of delivery,” said Chris Fevry, the co-owner of Dris Delivery, in a public meeting in October 2024, advocating for the removal of the two-driver rule, referencing the past chair of the commission, Steven Hoffman. “Thankfully, we didn’t die in the experiment. We’ve been close to it.”

In the same October public meeting, Fevry also advocated increasing the exclusivity period.

 “An extension is necessary because you almost killed the guinea pig in the experiment,” said Fevry. The guinea pig needs time to recover from the damage that was done by the two-driver rule.” 

The commission’s regulations require that data on the rates of participation of people of color and those harmed by the war on drugs be collected throughout the exclusivity period. It also directs commission to evaluate the financial feasibility of the “continued participation in the regulated Marijuana industry by communities that have previously been disproportionately harmed by Marijuana prohibition and enforcement of the law if [the] exclusivity period ends.”

At its Thursday meeting, the commission directed the staff to prepare a report with this data by September 11, 2025.

Michael Baker, the commission’s deputy general counsel, said the agency needed more time to evaluate the impact of removing the two-driver rule on the delivery businesses.

Commissioner Kimberly Roy asked Baker if the commission has been collecting this data the entire time or if it will be done retroactively. 

Baker said that data had been collected the entire time. However, when Roy asked if the commission had goals and metrics to share with the public, Baker said, “Not at this point.”

Roy pushed further and asked if the reason why the commission can’t raise the period above one year on the public meeting is because there isn’t a report yet.

“I wouldn’t characterize it in that way,” said Baker. “The regulations allow for a 12-month extension. If you wanted to go past 12 months as a set term of 36 months or 24 months, then you would have to opine on whether full participation has been met from communities that have been disproportionately harmed. [The staff] is seeking an extension to get you more data to make that determination.”

Roy questioned whether the decision to increase the exclusivity period without adequate data could open the commission up to litigation if there isn’t a good basis for the extension.

“We were all early in our tenure when this exclusivity period started,” said Bruce Stebbins, the current acting chair of the commission. “There was litigation that was threatened against the commission for this exclusivity period. Making sure at the end of the day that we come up with a sound reason for an extension – if we get to that point, we want it to be able to fend off any potential legal challenges.” 

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A NEW REPORT from the Cannabis Control Commission reveals that a lack of diversity persists at the senior leadership level across the cannabis industry despite Massachusetts’s mandate to ensure full participation of communities disproportionately harmed by the war on drugs.

The report, which is required by law and was initially due in December 2023 but is a year late, was presented to the commission on February 25 by the commission’s head of research, Julie Johnson. It showed that white individuals occupy 77 percent of senior-level positions, while Hispanic professionals hold four percent, Black professionals hold five percent, and Asian professionals five percent of these positions. 

These numbers have improved since the last report, which came out in 2020, when 84 percent of the senior leadership was white, only 4 percent was Black, and 3 percent was Hispanic, but they still lag behind demographic trends. According to census data as of 2023, Massachusetts’s population is 69.6 percent white, 9.5 percent Black or African American, and 7.7 percent Asian. 13.1 percent of the population identifies as being Hispanic or Latino across all of the races. Senior leadership positions refer to board members, directors, executives, and managers, to name a few.

“If our stated goal was to ensure that the folks who were affected were supposed to get first access to this industry, then yeah, we could do better,” said Ryan Dominguez, the head of the Massachusetts Cannabis Coalition. “There is definitely always room for improvement, especially if those are the numbers that we’re seeing because there is a lot of interest for folks to be able to access the cannabis industry.”

From the outset, when the ballot question legalizing recreational marijuana in the state passed, there was a promise made by the state to help those harmed by the war on drugs profit from the legal cannabis industry. 

Communities most harmed by cannabis prohibition face disproportionate barriers to entry into the cannabis industry, especially into senior positions, because there tend to be fewer employment opportunities for people with prior criminal convictions. There are also fewer social safety nets and less access to capital for people to enter the industry from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The cannabis industry report also shows that general employees who have more entry-level positions map closer to the census data with 68 percent white, seven percent Black, 10 percent Hispanic, and one percent Asian.

“It is no different than what we see happening in other industries in and around the state of Massachusetts with low presence of people of color,” said Dennis Benzan, the owner of the cannabis company Western Front with two retail locations in Cambridge and one in Chelsea. The difference here is that with cannabis and the evolution of cannabis in Massachusetts, we had an opportunity to get this right because it’s a new industry.”

Benzan has an “economic empowerment” certification – a category of license that is reserved for applicants who come from and who promise to employ people from communities disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs. 

The state’s Social Equity Program (SEP) and Economic Empowerment Program (EEP) were designed to lower barriers for entrepreneurs coming from diverse backgrounds, offering technical assistance, training, and priority licensing. There is also a special category for woman-owned, minority-owned, and veteran-owned businesses. 

These certifications tend to have expedited timelines and get other benefits like reduced licensing fees. But, Benzan and other social equity cannabis operators have struggled to stay afloat in the industry because of a lack of access to capital and the falling price of marijuana. 

Benzan’s classification as “economic empowerment” business means that he has to meet a set of criteria – one of which requires him to hire people from marginalized backgrounds, particularly those who live in disproportionately impacted communities and those who have criminal charges related to marijuana. This requirement does not apply across the industry.

“We’re being asked to do something to help remedy the past the criminalization of drugs in our communities in our neighborhoods, particularly disproportionately impacted communities, yet the entire industry doesn’t have that requirement, doesn’t have that mandate,” said Benzan.

The commission does require all cannabis companies to submit a “diversity plan” in which they describe how they will promote diversity and equity among people of color, women, veterans, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ individuals as a part of their licensing process. However, there is no enforcement mechanism. The failure to meet diversity goals doesn’t impact the license renewal process.

“There’s been a reluctance from the commission to penalize folks seeking renewals for failing to complete the [goals in their] diversity plans,” said Kevin Gilnack, president of the cannabis advocacy group Equitable Opportunities Now. “Right now, the data [on the diversity plans] is so scattered, so it’s hard to formulate a policy, but we need to put some teeth on what should be a cornerstone of the Commonwealth’s effort to encourage equitable participation.”

Commissioner Bruce Stebbins, the acting chair of the commission, said that he is thinking about how to do more with the diversity plans and lay out clear guidelines on what cannabis companies should do to promote diversity.

“From day one, this commission and our predecessors on the commission have been focused on engaging folks that are disproportionately harmed or lived in disproportionately impacted communities,” Stebbins told CommonWealth Beacon Thursday. “Getting the data in the industry report is a good start because it can show us that we need to do better, and we want to partner with our licensees to do better as well.”  

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WHEN BOUNTIFUL FARMS, a medical cannabis dispensary in Natick, went to renew its license in June, it hit an obstacle: the host community agreement that it needed to renegotiate with the town and have approved by the state’s Cannabis Control Commission.

The agreement with Natick was in violation of a 2022 law that banned communities from charging fees greater than three percent of gross annual sales and required that the fees be “reasonably related” to the impact of the cannabis business on the city or town. Because the agreement both discouraged Bountiful Farms from ever suing Natick and imposed fees in addition to a legally allowed “community impact fee,” the commission rejected the company’s renewal application, leaving its owners in limbo.

Bountiful Farms is not the only cannabis operator in Massachusetts stuck between a town trying to maximize the fees it collects and the Cannabis Control Commission trying to abide by the law. Last year, the commission rejected about three quarters of the host community agreements – as of mid-December 461 out of 615 were ruled non-compliant – submitted. Without a compliant agreement, these companies can’t get their licenses approved or renewed and, in some cases, can’t keep their businesses running. In the meantime, companies that are waiting to open are paying rent and spending thousands on legal fees while they wait to get their host community agreements in order.

“I have referred to the concept of HCAs and the negotiations as the ‘wild west’ because it wasn’t a level playing field for negotiation,” said Commissioner Kimberly Roy in September, referring to host community agreements. “The municipalities had an extraordinary amount of negotiation power and leverage with folks trying to get into this new industry.” 

After recreational cannabis was legalized through a ballot measure in 2016, the Legislature passed a law requiring host community agreements before cannabis operators could obtain a license. The community impact fees were capped at three percent at that time, but there wasn’t explicit language banning other fees – an opening many cities and towns exploited to charge more.

Industry leaders say that there needs to be more done to help companies that are locked in conflict with their towns – some of which are trying to include provisions in new agreements that would prevent cannabis companies from asking their host municipality to reimburse previous impact fees – to get compliant agreements.

The commission doesn’t have an enforcement mechanism to make communities abide by the 2022 law, but it is taking some steps to support cannabis operators. On January 23, commissioners voted unanimously to allow their general counsel to file a letter of support for the three cannabis companies that are suing Great Barrington to recoup millions of dollars in impact fees they paid as part of past host community agreements. To protect its authority to review agreements, the commission also empowered its general counsel to find a way to become more involved in the lawsuit, though it’s unclear what that might look like.

Great Barrington is taking the position that the commission does not have the authority to review host community agreements that were signed before the law was enacted.

There have been several lawsuits before the case in Great Barrington where cannabis operators have sued their towns to recover fees that would now be illegal. In Uxbridge, the owner of Caroline’s Cannabis sued the town over the impact fees that she paid and received a refund of almost $1.2 million. Caroline Pineau, a cannabis operator in Haverhill, recovered 70 percent of the fees she paid through a settlement after she sued the town.

Another trio of cannabis stores is threatening to sue Newton over past impact fees if the city doesn’t offer a refund. The mayor of Newton said in an email update to the city on January 24 that the city will defend the previous agreements and not allow the cannabis companies to claw back any fees.

Uxbridge and Haverhill declined to comment, and Great Barrington did not respond to questions.

In December, the cannabis commission issued new guidelines that explained what expenses – like consultant costs, environmental impact studies, and traffic design studies – qualify to charge cannabis operators as an impact fee. (Jeff Barton, the CEO of Bountiful Farms, said the company brought the new guidelines to the town to try to amend the agreement with Natick. Bountiful Farms submitted a new host agreement to the commission and is waiting for approval.)

“I think the CCC is aware of the [host community agreement] challenges and they are trying to do what they can within the law to assist but there is nothing within the commission’s arsenal that would allow any kind of substantial pushback to a non-cooperative municipality,” said Michael Ross, the co-chair of the Cannabis Practice Group at Prince Lobel. “At some point, the Legislature will have to address the larger issue with regards to the HCA when there are bad actors from the municipalities. A company seeking their HCA can be stonewalled, and in those instances, there is no recourse.”

David O’Brien, the president of the Massachusetts Cannabis Business Association, a trade group for industry professionals, said that the guidelines are “two years too late” and still lack enforceability. Municipalities, he noted, can still choose to completely ignore the commission’s guidelines. 

“The only person that the CCC has leverage over is the licensed cannabis operator, so the agency says to the operator, ‘You need to go to your community and make them be compliant,’” said O’Brien. “Well, how do they do that? [The CCC says:] Show them this guidance. [The operator says:] What if they don’t want to do it? [The CCC says:] We can’t help you.”

In the meantime, the commission has given extensions of up to a year to companies for their license renewal. But now, more than 60 companies are bumping up against the end of that grace period without compliant host community agreements. 

“Those licensees are in a position where they have to make some decisions and are a little bit under the gun to finish their licensing process and submit a compliant HCA as part of that,” Kajal Chattopadhyay, the commission’s general counsel, said in January. “It seems like we are getting notice of a new licensee being impacted on a daily basis. The number is growing.”

On February 13, the commissioners voted to grant licensees yet a longer total extension of 600 days so that those companies caught up in conflict with their towns over host community agreement compliance wouldn’t have to shut down their operations.

“We don’t want to see anyone have to shutter their doors because of this,” said Roy during the February meeting. “I’ve met personally with people who are quite frankly terrified because they need a compliant HCA to do business. Unfortunately, there are still communities that aren’t fully recognizing what I see, in my opinion, as the intent of the [2022] law. At some point, the courts will opine on this but short of that, I’m relieved that we are doing something to help folks in the interim.”

Ross said the Legislature should get rid of host community agreements entirely. The industry is struggling right now with the falling price of cannabis and the fact that operators can’t get bank loans because of federal law, he added. The process of getting a host community agreement can be time-consuming and expensive for operators who are barely getting by. 

“The larger question is whether or not these host community agreements are needed at all,” said Ross. “What practical purpose do they serve to the business or the municipality?”

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A REDACTED COPY of Treasurer Deborah Goldberg’s decision to fire Shannon O’Brien as chair of the Cannabis Control Commission was filed in court this week, but the treasurer is asking a skeptical judge to keep troves of other information related to the long-running saga out of public view.

Goldberg fired O’Brien in September 2024 after considering about 19 hours of meetings held last summer as well as two outside investigations, various documents, case law and policies. The treasurer had not released any document outlining her decision, but said she fired O’Brien because she “committed gross misconduct and demonstrated she is unable to discharge the powers and duties of a CCC commissioner.” O’Brien is contesting her firing and has appealed it through Suffolk Superior Court.

The treasurer laid out four instances of “conduct in which you engaged that may warrant your removal” in a letter to O’Brien last spring. That included claims that O’Brien “made rude and disrespectful comments, remarks, statements, and presumptions to Commission staff and colleagues that were or were perceived to be race-based or, at minimum, to be racially, ethnically, and culturally insensitive;” made comments about the parental leave of former CCC Executive Director Shawn Collins, a one-time Goldberg deputy, “that deprived him of assurances that he could exercise his rights to take additional job-protected parental leave, and those statements, combined with other conduct … created a hostile work environment;” and “communicated with and about the Commission’s Executive Director in a threatening, abusive, and humiliating manner that, in combination with the totality of behavior described … constituted bullying.”

The redacted version of her removal decision shows that Goldberg found nearly all of the claims to be creditable and concerning.

“I am removing Chair O’Brien as a commissioner because the sum and totality of her conduct described below amounts to gross misconduct, and because many of the instances described below individually constitute gross misconduct,” Goldberg wrote early in the decision. “Chair O’Brien also has demonstrated through her actions that she is unable to discharge the powers and duties of a commissioner.”

It also details a pattern of O’Brien making indelicate comments, including some that some people present viewed as being based in ethnicity or demographic background. Goldberg’s decision says those comments were made to members of the CCC, to one of the investigators interviewing O’Brien about a separate allegation of racial insensitivity, and during one of the hearings on her dismissal last year.

O’Brien is herself a former state treasurer and was the Democratic Party nominee for governor in 2002.

On Wednesday, the treasury filed a five-volume administrative record of the case with the court. The first volume consists of the redacted version of the 83-page explanation Goldberg wrote of her decision to fire O’Brien, a public document that the attorney general’s office provided at the News Service’s request Thursday morning. The treasurer asked the judge to impound the four remaining volumes, which are thought to contain transcripts of testimony given in closed-door hearings, investigative reports, emails detailing employee complaints at the CCC, written testimony submitted in connection with the hearings, and more.

A spokesman for O’Brien said Goldberg’s attempt to keep thousands of pages of information related to O’Brien’s firing private “is making a mockery of the public’s right to know.”

“When the Treasurer insisted on a secret hearing, Shannon O’Brien objected because she predicted that Treasurer Goldberg would make totally biased findings and conceal the evidence that proved the opposite. This is exactly what Treasurer Goldberg has done. She has released her partisan and unproven findings and concealed the evidence,” Joe Baerlein said on O’Brien’s behalf. He added, “While transparency is spoken of as a needed remedy for state government, the Treasurer continues to hide the facts, creating mischief and hoping no one will notice her behavior. The public should take notice of the State Treasurer’s proclivity to operate in the shadows of darkness.”

Goldberg’s office referred questions about the filing to Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office, which is representing Goldberg in the suit. Campbell’s office said volumes two through five of the administrative record are subject to a provisional motion to impound and as such are not available to the public.

Assistant Attorney General John Hitt, who has argued on Goldberg’s behalf in court, wrote in a filing late last year that Goldberg “acknowledges that this case … is of great interest to the public, and the public has a right to know as many of the facts and circumstances regarding the Treasurer’s decision as possible.”

“The Treasurer supports public disclosure of as much as the underlying record of proceedings before her as is possible,” Hitt wrote.

Judge Robert Gordon last month struck from the record the entirety of a 1,733-page appendix O’Brien filed alongside her appeal in an attempt to put information about her firing into the public realm. But the judge made clear in his ruling that he was skeptical the administrative record Goldberg was to file would contain large amounts of personal information that is protected under the “narrow definition” being used.

“Here, to the extent the Treasurer seeks to impound any portion of the administrative record, she must do so by accompanying motion in accordance with Standing Order 1-96. In such motion, the Treasurer must identify the specific information she seeks to withhold, and, as to each piece of information so referenced, she must cite the specific statutory or common law basis of the claim that the material is protected from public disclosure,” the judge declared.

But the motion Goldberg filed to impound most of the administrative record instead seeks more of a blanket impoundment without specifying any specific information to be withheld.

“Significant portions of the administrative record here reference such protected information concerning Plaintiff and third parties. The confidential information cannot feasibly be segregated or redacted from the voluminous record without extraordinary effort. Doing so would render the administrative record confusing and unusable,” the filing from Goldberg says. It adds, “Additionally, the effort and time that would be required to provide the notice to third-party data subjects identified in the administrative record and the opportunity for those third-party data subjects to potentially seek judicial relief … would likely slow down prompt judicial review of the final decision at issue here.”

An affidavit filed by Hitt this week said the administrative record is more than 2,940 pages long, plus audio and visual files.

“Attempting to do pinpoint redactions of the protected information is hampered by the fact that many of the references are not easily captured by PDF redaction software and would require hand review and re-review to ensure that all protected personal data had been removed from the record,” Hitt wrote.

Baerlein said O’Brien “looks forward to her day in court and the opportunity to finally and publicly clear her good name.” No future hearing had been scheduled as of Thursday afternoon.

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AFTER A YEARS-LONG WAIT, the Cannabis Control Commission has presented a new regulatory framework for getting social consumption for cannabis up and running in the state. But without an executive director, the road ahead remains uncertain.

The new proposed framework for social consumption has three different license types – a “supplemental” license for existing marijuana businesses to add a social consumption component like a “tasting room” for people to consume cannabis they purchase on the site, a “hospitality” license for on-site consumption at new or existing non-cannabis businesses like lounges, yoga studios, cafes, and theaters, and an “event organizer” license for consumption at events like festivals that are no more than five days long. 

Bruce Stebbins, the acting commission chair, warned that there are several hurdles before social consumption can begin in Massachusetts.

“This framework and the accompanying regulations represent our exhaustive and thoughtful work,” he said. “We know that this regulatory process is never quick, never speedy.”

The actual language of the regulatory changes will be released on December 17 and the commission’s goal is to get the social consumption regulations published by mid-2025. After that, the commission’s executive director and staff will have to have to develop applications for social consumption licenses, new guidance materials, and training for the new license type. 

Further complicating the process is the fact that the commission has been without an executive director since Sean Collins quit the position in December 2023. The commissioners offered the job to David Lakeman, the former head of government affairs at the agency, but according to reporting by The Boston Globe, he has rejected the offer.

The framework presented is attractive to business owners, said Tito Jackson, a former Boston city councilor and owner of Apex Noire who has been vying to get into social consumption for years now

“It presents an amazing opportunity for businesses like my own,” said Jackson. “It’ll strengthen the bottom line of our business and make us more competitive and more attractive. Social consumption also begins to normalize an an industry that is significantly contributing to the bottom line of the state of Massachusetts.”

Jackson urged the commission – which has been enmeshed in dysfunction with slow rollouts of regulations like the removal of the two-driver rule for cannabis delivery which happened in October after months of deliberations –  to move fast. 

The regulations will not allow alcohol and cannabis to be consumed in the same space and emphasize the importance of ventilation. Each social consumption space must have a menu with information about the cannabis products including the amount of THC as well as a food service menu that includes items without cannabis.

As with cannabis delivery licenses, the social consumption license will be available exclusively to social equity applicants in the beginning. The proposed regulations suggest an exclusivity period of five years after the first hospitality consumption licensee begins operating.

Expensive air ventilation systems, however, could be prohibitively expensive for social equity applicants to operate consumption sites. Many cannabis businesses have struggled with falling prices as well as the difficulty of raising capital without having access to banking because cannabis is still illegal under federal law. Stebbins noted that whether air handling systems will be required will depend on planned activities and that the executive director of the commission will be able to approve different technologies that promote air quality. 

Social consumption has been a long time coming in Massachusetts. It was legalized through the same 2016 ballot question that brought recreational marijuana to Massachusetts. 

The commission initially aimed to roll out regulations for social consumption in 2018 but held off following pressure from critics – including then-Governor Charlie Baker and then-Attorney General Maura Healey who encouraged the new commission to focus its limited resources instead on setting up retail shops and cultivation facilities. At the time, they said that they were worried that social consumption businesses would encourage over-consumption of cannabis and lead to more intoxicated driving.  

On top of that, a drafting error in the law prevented cities and towns from authorizing social consumption. By default, social consumption is banned at the local level so cities and towns have to opt in but initially, there was no process for them to do so. The Legislature weighed in with a 2022 law that fixed this issue by formally establishing a process by which municipalities can approve social consumption establishments. 

Municipalities that want social consumption businesses will have to opt-in by ordinance, by-law or petition and will have to revise zoning codes. There will also have to be a local permitting process for the new businesses. 

Last year, the commission chose to scrap a regulatory framework from 2019 that would have allowed social consumption sites to be rolled out with a pilot program in a maximum of 12 municipalities with restrictions that some advocates and cannabis operators called “overly burdensome.”

Since the ballot measure passed in 2016, social consumption has primarily been limited to private events. Entrepreneurs have created events during which people can smoke or consume edibles while doing yoga, craft-making, painting, and enjoying cannabis-infused meals. Generally, those who attend are encouraged to bring their own cannabis. For example, Sean Hope, a co-owner of Cambridge dispensary Yamba Market, has founded a private club called Diaspora that holds social consumption events around Harvard Square. 

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TREASURER DEBORAH GOLDBERG tried to bring some order to the chaos surrounding the Cannabis Control Commission on Tuesday, but it appears the year-long saga over who will ultimately lead the agency will continue.

Goldberg appointed commissioner Bruce Stebbins as the acting chair of the agency in an attempt to avoid the bickering that has taken place in the past as commissioners jockeyed among themselves for temporary control of the commission. She said Stebbins, who has appeared to be the least interested in amassing personal power, “will ensure stability during this period.”

But even as Goldberg tried to quell the internal infighting at the commission, it became clear that her decision on Monday to fire Shannon O’Brien as the agency’s chair will not be the last word on the matter. O’Brien’s attorney said on Tuesday that she plans to challenge the firing in court, a move that is likely to prolong chaos at the commission and bring all the messy details of the agency into public view.

In firing O’Brien, Goldberg issued a statement saying “the chair committed gross misconduct and demonstrated she is unable to discharge the powers and duties of a CCC commissioner.” She didn’t provide any specifics in her statement, but apparently laid out her findings in an 80-page document she delivered to O’Brien. Neither Goldberg nor O’Brien have released that document.

Goldberg suspended O’Brien with pay in September 2023 due to allegations that she had made “racially, ethnically, and culturally insensitive statements” and created a “hostile work environment.” 

O’Brien’s attorneys have argued again and again that the four hearings that the treasurer held, at which O’Brien was given the opportunity to defend herself, were not conducted in a fair manner. They have criticized the treasurer for being involved in the incidents that led to O’Brien’s dismissal – chiefly that the treasurer had a friendly relationship with Shawn Collins, the former Goldberg aide who was appointed executive director of the agency. Collins was the primary complainant in one of the investigations conducted into O’Brien’s conduct.

Ahead of the hearings, Goldberg provided O’Brien with an updated statement of reasons for her suspension. These included O’Brien allegedly making rude and disrespectful comments that were perceived as race-based or “racially, ethnically, and culturally insensitive,” making comments about Collins’s parental leave that were perceived as interfering with the right to parental leave, creating a hostile work environment, bullying Collins with threats, and being evasive with the investigators looking into her behavior.

O’Brien’s attorneys have argued that in all of the charges leveled against O’Brien, there is no evidence that she intended to harm Collins, other commissioners, or the staff. 

Max Stern, O’Brien’s attorney, referenced a 1989 court case, Hellman v. Board of Registration in Medicine, in his closing statement during the hearings. The decision in the case defined gross misconduct as “intentional wrongdoing or lack of concern for one’s conduct.” There is a good chance O’Brien will try to argue in court that her behavior does not rise to the level of “gross misconduct” because of the missing crucial element of intent. 

There were two separate investigations into O’Brien’s conduct that have hitherto been referred to but kept out of the public eye. O’Brien turned both of the reports over to reporters.

The first investigation was conducted after O’Brien and Cedric Sinclair, the communications director of the Cannabis Control Commission, accused each other of “harassment, bullying, and discriminatory treatment.” 

Sinclair was suspended in December of 2023 by the agency’s acting executive director and there were complaints from high-level women staffers alleging that Sinclair harassed and bullied them. (CORRECTION: Previously, this story incorrectly stated that Sinclair had left the commission.)

The investigative report cleared both Sinclair and O’Brien of the bullying charges but pointed out that O’Brien frequently made inappropriate comments about the work relationship between Sinclair and Commissioner Nurys Camargo. 

The report also contains the allegation that O’Brien made a racially insensitive comment by presuming that a fellow commissioner of color knew Sen. Lydia Edwards of East Boston on the basis of their race. The investigator also noted that O’Brien engaged in similar conduct with her by frequently referencing “high visibility politicians, business leaders and other influential individuals” that O’Brien perceived as sharing the same demographic background with the investigator.

“Having directly experienced similar comments and behavior by the Chair, the undersigned investigator finds Commissioner Camargo’s allegations credible,” the investigator wrote. 

Some parts of the investigative report were redacted because they were made by anonymous sources. One comment O’Brien made where she referred to people of Asian descent as “yellow” is not present in the unredacted sections. O’Brien has acknowledged making the “yellow” comment but only in retelling a comment made by a developer of color.

Thomas Maffei, who Goldberg appointed as a presiding officer over the hearings, ruled that the treasurer should not consider the anonymous complaints because that would raise “serious due process issues.” He struck all of the statements attributed to anonymous sources.

The second investigation focused more on the conflict between Collins, the former executive director, and O’Brien. Collins alleged that O’Brien created a “toxic” and “hostile” work environment by interfering with his right to parental leave, threatening to fire him, forcing him to resign, and publicly revealing personal information about him. The investigator for this report focused on the incident where O’Brien revealed in a public meeting that Collins would be going on leave and then leaving the agency.

“It was especially severe and egregious due to both the content and the public setting,” said the report. “She effectively extinguished any chance Shawn could define the terms on which he left the Commission, and she set off a media firestorm from which Shawn feels his career cannot recover. While that remains to be seen, the Chair’s decision to publicly deprive Shawn of a graceful exit from the agency he built and, for the most part, led competently for years cannot be viewed as anything other than bullying behavior.”

For O’Brien’s part, her attorneys argued that she had to announce Collins’s departure because failing to do so would impede the commission’s ability to hire a new executive editor as the agency was drafting and promulgating regulations that were long overdue.

O’Brien also argued that she was concerned that Collins was not doing a good job of managing the agency. In the report, the investigator noted that four out of five commissioners also had concerns about Collins’s performance in the role.

In his closing statement, Stern once again called for a public name-clearing hearing for O’Brien and said that everything would come out into the public anyway. 

“When this is over, this privacy is not there anymore,” said Stern “And in whatever — and if there’s a lawsuit, and of course, there will be a lawsuit if we are unable to get the ruling that we think we should get today. Everything will be on the record. Everything will be out there. And we will do everything in our power to clear her name.”

The post Fight between Goldberg, O’Brien heading to court appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

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STATE TREASURER Deborah Goldberg finds herself in a very difficult position.

Goldberg suspended Shannon O’Brien as chair of the Cannabis Control Commission last September amid allegations she had made “racially, ethnically, and culturally insensitive statements.”

O’Brien, who was appointed originally by Goldberg, didn’t go quietly into the night. She hired lawyers and fought the suspension, first in court and then in a series of four closed-door hearings that wrapped up at the start of July. Since the meetings concluded, Goldberg has taken no action for nearly two months, leaving the commission leaderless at a time when the agency has become a poster child for bureaucratic dysfunction.

It’s an unprecedented situation. Goldberg has spent close to $750,000 in taxpayer dollars on legal fees during the fight with O’Brien and O’Brien has probably spent a similar amount or more on private attorneys. O’Brien has also continued to collect her $196,551 annual salary during her suspension.

Meanwhile, the agency O’Brien used to lead is barely functioning, with employees jumping ship, policy initiatives on hold, money missing, and commissioners at odds. At a recent meeting, it took nearly an hour for the commissioners to agree on who should serve as acting chair – and that was just for two meetings.

Sen. Michael Moore, a Democrat from Millbury, implored the treasurer to make a decision. “What else do we have to wait for to get this staffing back up to where it should be?” he asked. “As we’re waiting for this decision, we continue to see the deterioration of the Cannabis Control Commission.”

Goldberg spokesman Andrew Napolitano says the treasurer “is taking the necessary time to review all of the information before her to make an informed decision.” But many observers think Goldberg is caught between a rock and a hard place. If she returns O’Brien to her position as chair of the commission, Goldberg will face enormous criticism for having left the Cannabis Control Commission without a chair for close to a year. If she fires O’Brien, she is likely to be sued by O’Brien, which means the case is likely to drag on even longer  and all the documents and materials that have been kept out of the public eye so far are likely to come into the public domain.

Under state law, O’Brien can be removed from her position if she is guilty of malfeasance or gross misconduct, convicted of a felony, or unable to do or neglecting her job. What is known of the charges against O’Brien has come largely from O’Brien herself, who summarized them when she was initially suspended and went to court seeking a way to defend herself. 

According to O’Brien, the charges consist mostly of alleged racially-charged comments O’Brien made that offended some of her coworkers. For example, she used the word “yellow” – a racial slur – to refer to Asian Americans (O’Brien said she was just repeating a story told by an African-American developer) and she presumed that a fellow commissioner of color knew Sen. Lydia Edwards on the basis of their race. There were also allegations that O’Brien mistreated the former executive director of the agency, who was formerly a close aide of Goldberg.

Whether the charges rise to the level of firing offense is unclear, but past precedent would suggest the bar to remove an official at an independent state agency is fairly high. The Supreme Judicial Court ruled in 2002 that former acting governor Jane Swift could not legally remove Jordan Levy and Christy Mihos from the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority board for failing to raise tolls as Swift had directed.  [Due to a typographical error, the wrong year was given for the Supreme Judicial Court decision.]

The Levy-Mihos case has some parallels to the dispute between Goldberg and O’Brien. For example, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Debra Squires-Lee cited the Levy case and the protocols Swift followed when she allowed Goldberg to proceed with hearings on O’Brien. Goldberg even named as her presiding officer Thomas Maffei, who played the same role during the Levy and Mihos hearings.

The Levy-Mihos decision may also be instructive for the O’Brien case. The SJC held that Swift could not fire Levy and Mihos without cause because the two commissioners worked for an independent authority not subject to the governor’s day-to-day direct supervision. The same would seem to apply to O’Brien at the Cannabis Control Commission. 

The court also held that the actions of Levy and Mihos did not rise to the level of “malfeasance, misfeasance, or wilful neglect of duty” needed for dismissal. “This case boils down to a difference of opinion between the Governor and two members of the Authority over the policy of the Authority and the ability of the members to fix tolls,” the court held. “That difference of opinion does not constitute substantial evidence that Levy or Mihos acted in a manner that warrants removal by the Governor for cause.”

When Squires-Lee allowed Goldberg to move ahead with the dismissal hearings targeting O’Brien, she made no ruling on O’Brien’s claim that the allegations against her reflect policy disagreements or disputes over personnel management or other operational matters.  “I reach no conclusion on that argument as it is premature and cannot be resolved at this time on this record on a request for injunction,” Squires-Lee wrote.

As Goldberg weighs the legalities, pressure is building on her to act.

Rep. Michael Soter, a Republican from Bellingham who sits on the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Cannabis Policy, said Goldberg needs to resolve the situation quickly.

“We can’t waste anymore time with this childish behavior,” he said. “It’s childish. It’s nonsense. You don’t [run] a billion dollar operation like this.” 

Soter believes Goldberg should reinstate O’Brien as chair of the Cannabis Control Commission. “There’s nothing there,” he said. “Everything that we’ve seen and everything that’s been made public, I don’t understand why this has been going on as long as it has.”

Moore said firing O’Brien is likely to prolong the void in leadership at the top of the Cannabis Control Commission. “If she does terminate the current chair, is that going to result in some sort of appeal or court action?” asked Moore. “If that does happen, there are additional legal expenses that will have to be paid. But I definitely think a decision has to be made. We can’t have a $7 billion industry in limbo.”

People in the cannabis industry are watching the drama play out with increasing frustration. 

“At some level, the industry doesn’t really care [about who is chair],” said Jeffrey Harold, CEO of Garden Remedies, a vertically integrated cannabis company with three dispensaries in the state. “We need somebody selected, through the treasurer, to be the chair of the CCC. The industry looks at that as all of the tax dollars and all of the money that we are generating just being wasted on an ongoing battle.” 

Ryan Dominguez, the head of the Massachusetts Cannabis Coalition and a member of the Cannabis Social Equity Advisory Board, said that the lack of leadership consistency at the CCC has impacted the industry negatively. 

“The industry right now is discouraged,” said Dominguez. “My members have shared that they have a lack of confidence that changes needed for the industry can happen in an efficient or timely fashion. I’ve been hearing a lot, right now, that we don’t have a voice in terms of who is leading us and making the changes that we need on a regulatory front.” 

There is frustration that regulations – like the long-awaited change in the two-driver rule – are not worked on in a timely manner and implemented quickly enough to respond to the industry’s needs because the commission is so focused on its own leadership challenges. Cannabis business owners have said repeatedly that the industry is in crisis and that they need regulatory changes to even stay afloat. 

The state inspector general called the agency “rudderless” and urged the Legislature to put it under receivership. Lawmakers decided not to take that step but have said they will be holding hearings on the commission this fall. 

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WITH CONCERNS BEING raised that fees are going uncollected or missing, a member of the Cannabis Control Commission is calling for a forensic audit of the agency. 

Kimberly Roy, the commission’s treasurer, didn’t address the fee issue directly, but said she wants certified public accountants to examine the agency’s financial operations, its fee collections, and the impact its policy decisions are having on the cannabis industry. Forensic audits typically examine an organization’s financial records and look for fraud, misconduct, or irregularities

“We’re just trying to make smart, informed decisions moving forward,” Roy told reporters following the agency’s public meeting on Thursday. “As I sit in the treasurer’s role, I have a fiduciary responsibility to this agency and I’m trying to make sure I adhere to that. We’ve done this in other areas of the commission, where we bring in outside experts that provide recommendations, and that’s what I’m advocating for again.” 

Roy said that this wasn’t a “gotcha moment” – an apparent reference to press reports about substantial amounts of fees not being collected or gone missing – but rather an opportunity to help the commission modernize. 

Roy said she isn’t sure whether her fellow commissioners will support her idea. “This involves a more robust conversation to take the temperature on [how] my colleagues feel on that, but I fully support it,” said Roy.

When asked about whether the forensic audit would be addressed at the commission’s next meeting, she said it depended on whether she is reappointed as the acting chair.  “It’s the chair who determines the agenda so I could want to bring it up but it depends who is determining what the agenda is,” she said.

At a meeting on August 15, Roy was appointed acting chair for that meeting and Thursday’s meeting, but it took nearly an hour of politicking before all three commissioners agreed. The current chair is suspended and the previous acting chair is on a pregnancy leave.

On Thursday, the commission held a public listening session allowing those businesses that grow cannabis outdoors to voice their needs and frustrations. The meeting was held at a public library in Great Barrington. At the meeting, Roy scheduled a special public meeting at which the commission could pick an acting chair. “The  industry and the agency need one,” said Roy.“We’ve been accused of being a rudderless ship and that feeds into that narrative and I want to make sure that there is someone calling meetings [and] keeping us moving forward.” 

The Inspector General has called the agency a “rudderless ship” and has urged lawmakers to put the agency under a receivership. Lawmakers have chosen not to put the agency under receivership but the committee on cannabis policy will be holding hearings on the agency in the fall. 

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