A .maryland.gov website belongs to an official government organization in Maryland.
A lock icon () or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the official website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.
This editable transcript was computer generated and might contain errors. People can also change the text after it was created.
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: 86,686 individual sticks of product We’d seized 13,339 packs of one stamped cigarettes.
Elizabeth Buck: he
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: We see East gosh a kind of look at this part. It’s 152 containers of either wine or sorry of spirits of spirits alone 198 containers of beer. That other tobacco products tax laws to the state of what we seized was over 834. And the cigarette tax laws was over 48,828.
James E. Hock Jr -State Police-: Robert someone I’m on the alcohol community,…
Elizabeth Buck: He went into. right
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: all of those incidents and that was again October to November all those Worchester Prince George’s County Baltimore County Allegheny County Wicomico County and…
James E. Hock Jr -State Police-: so I’m good.
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Arundel County
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Baltimore City And Carroll County and Cecil County. So it was just all across the state that month. then since the mid November till today, we had another 17 incidents and again relating those just refresh the incident means Probably someone was charged and incident report was written. I’m going to start reporting to The number of inspections we do too so you can see that it’s a large amount of inspections and then at each month. It’s a smaller amount of incidence that actually warrants a report charging. So in our last reporting period other tobacco products totaled A 59,199 sticks cigarettes 14 unstamped packs.
Elizabeth Buck: his name
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: We had interestingly 10 containers of the still spirits. but most interestingly in Wicomico County. We also seized a still so someone was making their own Spirits now years ago that was Not common, but fairly regular and it’s very unregular now,…
Elizabeth Buck: Make it.
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: but now we got to still this past month as well. Of tax loss regarding the other tobacco products was over 41,439. Dollars and cigarette tax loss was over 3,487 dollars. Just those two reporting periods alone.
Elizabeth Buck: we
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: The tax laws of all the tobacco stuff was gosh, almost 180,000 just in tax loss, so you can imagine that was an awful lot of product and those jurisdictions Anne Arundel Hartford Prince George’s Wicomico Baltimore County Saint Mary’s County.
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: or Wicomico County Carroll County, Washington County in Baltimore City So just really again all over the state.
Elizabeth Buck: Thank you.
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: We have a variety of annual reports that are due every year and from our perspective that’s going to put me what I think you’ll be concerned with is the annual alcohol and tobacco tax report, which you all should have received copies of that went to general assembly following all the requirements as well as the governor and the presiding officers of the general assembly and when I see to the general salary, I mean their Library we’re required to submit copies of their Library interesting. We send five hard copies as well as electronic copies. Also we sent in our report on underage sales to underage consumers of tobacco products, which is information and data we get from the various local Departments of Health. We just collate that and cement submit that also as well those have all been done and on time submitted.
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Before I get cannabis Outreach. Also I mentioned to you that last week will tillberg and I went before they can MD which are the tobacco cannabis Growers and processors Organization for the state and made a presentation for them. It was really a very robust organization. Well attended by their membership and very robust a lot of good questions was an opportunity for will to talk about what the MCA does is regulators and then from my perspective to talk about what the atccc does as really not Regulators are there industry but supporters of their legitimate industry…
Elizabeth Buck: Yeah.
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: what we do to support their activity by controlling as best we can the illicit operation and helping to funnel. Consumers into the legitimate which we would say even potentially safer Market for them to be in. So that was really a good presentation last week. I think and then earlier in the month. I reported I went and met with the Maryland beer wholesalers Association which are all of our beer distributors and he has a little bit of familiar area some area with them. We missed her at that meeting and just made they had their annual meeting. And I went there and made a presentation as well and spoke about their issues for sure and introduce them to what’s going on with cannabis and it is interesting as we’re starting to see some.
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: We’re not seeing bleed over necessarily but we’re starting to see requests for bleed over, canbis infused alcohol beverages not allowed the cannabis infused non-alcoholic beverages maybe and so some of our beer wholesalers are being approached about potentially Distributing non-alcoholic.
00:05:00
Elizabeth Buck: anything
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: cannabis infused products, so There’s really a lot of tie in there as well. And I mentioned I was going to talk about the inspections just to start giving you that data. We do a lot of inspections.
Elizabeth Buck: would do
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: And so what I’m going to give you each meeting is how many inspections year-to-date not necessarily how many we’ve done since our last meeting but just a year-to-date running total. So since July 1st always be fiscal years since July first. 696 alcohol inspections and again just to refresh those take a little bit of time. That’s where we’re looking at. It’s generally of retail establishments almost entirely of that to be packaged Goods bars restaurants anybody who holds a retail license which are issued by local boards, but we support our local boards by conducting these inspections and it takes a little bit of time because we go through invoices checking product and making sure that it’s all following the flow that it’s supposed to follow that it’s being obtained in the manner that it should be obtained and…
Elizabeth Buck: he
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: that’s a record-keeping is right. and regarding tobacco and cannabis inspections, which we kind of do simultaneously because the Cannabis stuff we’re finding that that’s in Our wheelhouse are largely being sold by people…
Elizabeth Buck: Okay.
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: who sell tobacco as well not say all tobacco retailers are selling it.
Elizabeth Buck: Okay.
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: But many of the nabis read people who sell cannabis products who aren’t MCA license or selling it in stores that also can tobacco products. we did 595 of those inspections since July 1st and of those inspections tobacco and cannabis inspections, we’ve issued or…
Elizabeth Buck: he
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: left behind a cannabis advisory to 335 of those locations, which would tell you that it was probably out of the 959 that we About 335 did have some business with him probably had it for sale and…
Elizabeth Buck: is he
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: our advisory those two things first. It tells them what Maryland law is and what they’re not allowed to do or how they’re allowed to sell it lawfully, which is to have a license from MCA depending on the strength of the product.
Elizabeth Buck: Okay.
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: And the second is we updated that advisory in August. It’s been updated to Our operational changes as a result of the lawsuit from the Maryland hemp Coalition that we’re currently under the injunction of so So our advisory now also contains information about that injunction what they’re allowed to do to the extent that they’re allowed to participate or continue operations. And that doesn’t mean inspections stop and it doesn’t mean you can do things like sell to underage consumers. You may do none of that. It’s simply if you’re in business selling him. Products that meet the requirement the THC levels that are subject to our purview. That you may continue to do that if you’re doing it prior to July first until The injunctions address in some fashion, until it’s resolved. So We do a lot of inspections.
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: And from that I’m going to jump into our HR, we received about 22 new positions on July 1st, 14 of those were sworn agent positions and we’ve hired all…
Elizabeth Buck: negative
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: but six I say 14 our new plus we had some vacancies that we were filling. So we’ve hired all but nine people in total on what we were able to bring one agents wise having said that we’ve actually made job offers to six others. They’ll be within the next maybe one or two pay Cycles expect for those to be on two of them are going to be staggered a little bit later but they’ve accepted the job will be on so we’re really down to three agent positions left to hire for…
Elizabeth Buck: things
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: which we have lists available to start hiring from them as well. We have to stagger because I mean quite frankly we’re bringing a lot of people a lot for us and to be able to equip and even more so provide the field training that’s necessary. It wasn’t practical bring everybody on day one. We have to stagger that so we can keep them going through a series of insura on the training and we still have I think maybe two positions that we have in one boarded yet that are non-sworn but one of them has been posted and one of them the posting and is open now if anyone the other has been posted and the postings ended and we have about 30 to 40 applicants for that. And one last thing I’d like to do. A moment of personal privilege. I want to introduce Mike is our comms officer now. He came on board with us the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. And he is phenomenal.
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: We met this morning with him.
Elizabeth Buck: he
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: He’s working on he’s our Communications also, but he’s really Communications Plus much more many you have probably looked at our very sad website that is static and doesn’t do a whole lot and Mike comes with vast experience of developing website the front end of what the public will say in the back end, which is the meat potatoes the data. He’s done all of that and this morning we have our routine Thursday morning leadership meetings here and…
00:10:00
Elizabeth Buck: Cindy
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Mike showed us what he’s done so far and you’re gonna be very very pleased. He’s dragging us into the 2000s right off the bat. I got to kick out of because he was describing our old platform as Mike. I’ll leave you some of the terms and phrases but it was kind of fun but Antiquated he didn’t say Barbara, but it was words like that and he’s gonna take us out of those dark ages and make us much more modern. So what we’re hoping is Around June. January 5th. I hope that we’re going to be going live maybe a soft open. If you will into our new website that will remain under construction for improvements,…
Elizabeth Buck: he
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: but we’ll start using that as our place. So to that in Commissioners if you have a headshot that you’d like to have posted on we’d love to have it because we’re going to have room for that, so please send for you a headshot to me if you can and we’ll get that on board
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: We’ll see how we want to develop that further beyond that and…
Elizabeth Buck: yeah.
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: said, I’ll take it just a moment. I’ll introduce Mike and ask him to weigh in last thing before I ask Mike to just say hello. Is the Maryland slightly Smith State License beverage Association the Maryland beer hole so wholesale Association and the Beverage distributors of Maryland which are our retailers and our beer and wine and spirits wholesalers a whole bunch of them will have their opening day event reception for the opening of the general assembly which takes place on January 10th all we have invitations for each of the Commissioners. If you would please provide us with a mailing address, we’ll send them to you if you know that you will be attending now also, please let me know that and we’ll RCP on your behalf and let them know that if you’re not going to attend, please let me know that as well so that they don’t, create name badges and things like that for you. So if you’re not going to attend, please let me know if you know you are and you would like for us to RCP for you.
Elizabeth Buck:
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: We will and let me know that otherwise I just email to us and provides with a good mailing address and we’ll send you these out appreciate that. So my last really great pleasure is introduce you to Mike win. We are lucky into some terrific people and Mike is one of those and we’re just happy to have him as part of our team what he showed us today is really going to bring us into a very modern era and…
Elizabeth Buck: he
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: maybe fulfill our dream of being that one. Stop place. If you want to know about Alcohol Tobacco cannabis provide health information product information be the one place to come and get what you need to know for all these and Mike is really taking the lead and bringing us there. So Mike if you wouldn’t mind coming on and…
Elizabeth Buck: e
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: just introduce yourself briefly to everybody and say whatever you’d like. We’re thrilled to have you.
MICHAEL NGUYEN -ATCC-: Was Communications officer for the Baltimore Community Foundation where I led the communications efforts on divisional and the content side so my background started off as a graphic designer, but the witch started in the late 90s, but 30 years. I found that I just needed to continue to add to my skill set just to stay relevant and that it was good for me because it allowed me to Put my hands and everything and see the whole picture how Communications comes together. and when actress offered me to position I saw a really wonderful opportunity especially seeing that I have. A opportunity basically to start from scratch and…
Elizabeth Buck: he
MICHAEL NGUYEN -ATCC-: build something here. So as Jeff said I showed a preview of a website this morning and
MICHAEL NGUYEN -ATCC-: the joke that he was alluding to was like I said our current website that was on to Controllers Office looked like it was from 1997, but after working with our current platform. I’m going to bring it into the early 2000s as a stopgap.
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: It’s big.
MICHAEL NGUYEN -ATCC-: So yeah, but yeah, so, when we launched this version of the website, the purpose of this iteration is simply to get all of our content from the Comptroller site to our own home but rather than just dump everything and put a whole bunch of links. I still feel like we needed to have some sort of logic as far as navigation, but that’s not where we’re gonna stop. that’s just gonna hold us over until we all build our permanent website, which I’m looking forward to do…
00:15:00
Elizabeth Buck: okay, and
MICHAEL NGUYEN -ATCC-: because it’ll be the heart and soul of our Communications plan moving forward. and that’s it that I look forward to working with you all and if you have a questions, feel free to reach out.
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Yeah, thanks Yeah, you can just see our team is really filling in very very nicely and open invitation still to come by and see What our office looks like. The chair was here not long ago, and I think he again saw that was a pretty nice location. So we’re very fortunate. We don’t take that for granted and in our selection of our teams as we’re moving forward. We’re
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Make sure we take good care of the facility in the organization really wanted to be something pretty stellar. And to the extent we can something that’s nationally recognized and certainly a leader. That’s what we want. So enough on that Mr. Chair return it back. the holiday season it’s in full run here and we’ll be wrapping it up in the next week and a half two weeks or so. So I want to wish everybody Happy Holidays for me personally to each of them from the atcc as well.
Elizabeth Buck: Yeah.
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: So all of you appreciate collaborating with you guys over the last year and really big strides unexpected surprises and big strides we’ve made so thank you Mr. Chair. that’s the end of my report.
Alan Silverstein: I know the other Commissioners would agree with me that this has been a year of transition. You and the staff have done a masterful job of getting to…
Elizabeth Buck: But yeah.
Alan Silverstein: where you’re at. Now you’re building a great team, and we look forward to next year and seeing the stability that and the type of leadership that you’ve shown this year.
Alan Silverstein: Into the next year I know for having said on some of the meetings as Betty has with wholesalers and retailers that there are still liquor issues of concern. I know that we’re going to see more issues on those individuals who are selling cannabis project products making sure that they’re doing things correctly and we want to make sure that our youth do not get their hands on Illegally. So it’s gonna be a big Challenge and we know that atcc is up to that challenge along with other state agencies that work in that field. So I want to wish everybody happy holiday and that’s promotion for a German.
Elizabeth Buck: so moved
Alan Silverstein: Barbara
Barbara a: second
Eric Morrissette: he Was in favor significant by saying right?
Alan Silverstein: an emotion in the second Eric all right, all those in favor signify by saying I Motion carries.
Elizabeth Buck: Merry Christmas
Alan Silverstein: All right next year meeting January 18.
Eric Morrissette: ocean hearing just
Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: like bye.
James E. Hock Jr -State Police-: Bye everybody.