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ATCC Public Meeting #52, APRIL 2025 at 3:00pm – 2025/04/17 14:48 EDT – Transcript

Attendees

Alan Silverstein, Alexandra Nowalk -MDH-, ANDREW WATERS -ATCC-, Bob Douglas, Bonnie Pearsall, D. Rosarion, Dawn Berkowitz -MCA-, Eric Morrissette, Geneva Boags, ISAI HERNANDEZ -ATCC-, James Hock -State Police-, Jane Springer, Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-, Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-, Karen Deaver -CCHD-, L Z, Maria Gracia -ATCC-, Nicholas Manis, Robert Poole, Thomas Akras -ATCC-

Transcript

Alan Silverstein: Hey, trying out some new backgrounds. So, I’ve got the Avalon Theater is my background today.

Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-: Yeah, that’s gorgeous. How are you doing?

Alan Silverstein: Better. I’ll tell you what, it’s been a long journey,…

Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-: Yeah, you look good.

Alan Silverstein: but yeah, we’ve got to get my blood pressure under control. it’s normal.

Alan Silverstein: of drops and I eat some stuff with salt and…

Alan Silverstein: that’s normal. So, we’re changing medications, doing some stuff, but I’m up moving, driving. So, yeah, that’s encouraging.

Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-: That’s good to hear.

Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-: Did you get a second to talk to Jeff?

Alan Silverstein: Yeah, Jeff and I had a nice visit. Thank you.

Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-: Okay, good.

Alan Silverstein: Yeah,

Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-: I just wanted to get on and make sure that I have everything set up for sharing my screen.

Alan Silverstein: Mhm. …

Alan Silverstein: there’s always something going on in the background. So, as long as I’ve traveled to Annapolis, for 20 years going into the legislature for stuff. Yeah. You always want to know the rest of the story. But sounds like everything’s good in the department.

Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-: Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-: Everything’s going I think.

Alan Silverstein: So, how you’ve been doing some races,…

Alan Silverstein: haven’t you?

Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-: I’ve been running a lot.

Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-: Yes. Yeah.

Alan Silverstein: Yeah, that’s what Jeff had mentioned. Is it competitive running?

Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-: I guess you could say I’m competitive in it, but the reality of it is that we’re all a bunch of amateurs running for fun.

Alan Silverstein: Okay.

Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-: 

Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-: You know what I mean? But you could say I’m a little bit competitive amongst the amateurs that I’m running against,…

Alan Silverstein: Yeah. I find that hard to believe.

Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-: Yeah. So, it looks like we should have a good crew here today.

Alan Silverstein: I’m sorry I didn’t catch you.

Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-: We should have a good crew a good attendance today.

Alan Silverstein: Okay, good.

Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-: Okay. Yeah,…

Alan Silverstein: That’ll be nice to have a good quum and

Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-: for sure.

Alan Silverstein: Sounds good. Hey,

Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-: I’m gonna put myself on mute for a second and go through some of these slides that Tom sent me. All right. Just let me know if you need anything.

Alan Silverstein: James, how you doing?

James Hock -State Police-: unfind yourself.

Alan Silverstein: Doing good. That’s the Avalon Theater at night.

James Hock -State Police-: I like your background.

Alan Silverstein: Yeah. Yeah,…

James Hock -State Police-: Was more exciting than mine.

Alan Silverstein: I think it looks good.

Alan Silverstein: Did you get your place all cleaned and painted now? Your new one thing,…

James Hock -State Police-: We did hasn’t been work here in over a year.

James Hock -State Police-: It’s very Nothing fancy, but it’s  new carpet and the asbestous towel is now covered up with something else. All old buildings

Alan Silverstein: it’s another. That’s for sure.

00:05:00

James Hock -State Police-: So, I guess we’ll get a legislative update today probably.

Alan Silverstein: Yeah, that’s my understanding. I think we came out okay. When I lived in South Dakota,…

James Hock -State Police-: I can’t imagine 30 seconds.

Alan Silverstein: the saying was no man or beast is safe during the legislative session. And luckily they did a 30-day session one year and then the second year they did 60 days to clean up the mess from the 30 days.

Alan Silverstein: At least our senators don’t go year round like New York other places.

James Hock -State Police-: Did you by chance make it up to the new building in Annapolis?

Alan Silverstein: No. Yeah.

James Hock -State Police-: Yeah, the late breakfast building had the earrings. It’s very nice. They looks like they did a good job picking it through. Joint airing room is very nice, big enough to accommodate this really put a lot of thought into it.

Alan Silverstein: That’s good. No, big excitement here was they broke ground for the new half billion dollar hospital.

James Hock -State Police-: Nice.

Alan Silverstein: So, I only was involved from 2006 on trying to get a hospital here.

James Hock -State Police-: Who will the hospital?

Alan Silverstein: This is the University of Maryland Regional Medical Center. This was the promise when they picked up the Dorchester Hospital. they picked up the hospital in Chester Town and then to the Doorchester one down,…

Alan Silverstein: built a new facility for them with they got eight beds for emergency services but the whole it was a hub and spoke kind of thing. And so this was the last piece.

James Hock -State Police-: We’re good.

Alan Silverstein: Yeah, it’s needed.

Alan Silverstein: I’ll tell you, I spent 15 days in the hospital between January and February, and the people were great, but the facilities are less than desirable.

James Hock -State Police-: But we have a large University of Maryland run hospital in Harford County, but I only learned recently, but clearly it’s basically overwhelmed. We have one hospital. We had two memorial closed.

James Hock -State Police-: We just have upper chest. I’ve been told it’s overwhelmed with work.

Alan Silverstein: Yeah, I mean they’re not fun places to begin with,…

Alan Silverstein: but after being in Hopkins number of years ago,…

Alan Silverstein: there’s comparison.

James Hock -State Police-: We are blessed with some good hospital. I ran into a friend of the state trip many many years ago and…

James Hock -State Police-: I thought he was living in Montana association and I said I didn’t know you were back in Maryland where are you visiting he said no I’m back for two years he said how far you have to go in Montana if you need real medical care you have to go to Seattle there was nothing there the

Alan Silverstein: Yeah. Yeah.

Alan Silverstein: I know it’s a challenge especially in rural areas. Mhm.

James Hock -State Police-: So hopefully now I’ve got to have a procedure done mid next month at St. Jose.

Alan Silverstein: Yeah, that’s a good hospital.

James Hock -State Police-: There you

Alan Silverstein: Got a number of good hospitals on the western shore. All right. Where’s my board members? Hi, Eric.

00:10:00

James Hock -State Police-: Robert, how are you?

Eric Morrissette: Happy Thursday.

Alan Silverstein: Thank you.

Eric Morrissette: Seeing you,…

Alan Silverstein: Good to see you.

Eric Morrissette: Doing well.

Alan Silverstein: How’s the family doing?

Eric Morrissette: The little one is getting very big. She turned two a few weeks ago, so she’s just getting big.

Alan Silverstein: Great for Robert.

Robert Poole: Good afternoon, gentlemen. How are you,…

Alan Silverstein: Nice to see all of us.

Robert Poole: Good to see you again. I haven’t seen you in a while. always good. Eric, sir.

1. Rosarion: Hello everyone.
2. Rosarion: Happy Thursday.

Alan Silverstein: We’ll get started in a minute. Mr. Douglas, how are you, That’s good. Thanks for joining us. Anybody else has come on board?

Alan Silverstein: Thank you. Let’s see. Says LZ is all I can see.

Bob Douglas: Who’s kitty cat?

Bob Douglas: It’s a cute cat. Looks like one of mine I had in the past.

Alan Silverstein: Mr. Kelly, welcome aboard.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Good to see you all. Thank you so much and beg your indulgence. Trying to wrap up another meeting real quick to get free, but good to see everybody.

Alan Silverstein: I see Tom’s come on with us.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: It has been busy.

Alan Silverstein: Yeah, it is now 3:00. so I’m going to call the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Cannabis Commission meeting to order. we’re going to have a roll call. we have Commissioner P,…

Alan Silverstein: Commissioner Rosarian,…

1. Rosarion: Motion to approve.

Alan Silverstein: Commissioner Morsette,…

Alan Silverstein: who’s with us,…

Eric Morrissette: motion. One second.

Alan Silverstein: and myself, Alan Silverstein. So we have a quorum. Yay.

Alan Silverstein: I need a motion for approval of the March 2025 meeting minutes. M. Okay. Motion in a second. All those in favor I. Oppos.

1. Rosarion: right.

Alan Silverstein: Same sign. Okay. Mr. Kelly, your executive

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Thank you,…

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: And good afternoon everybody. It’s good to see you all. If you’ll indulge me again, I’m going to delay my part of the report. Initially, I want to introduce Andrew Waters, director of he does everything, licensing, regulation, trade practices, all the whole reason we exist, he does it. And he’s got a meeting it’s starting now to get some updates on a lot of technology things we have going on. But we’ve got some real exciting things happen. So I asked him to speak first just to fill you in some answer any questions you might have and…

ANDREW WATERS -ATCC-: Sure thing.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: 

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: then I’m gonna let him go so he can get to his meeting. So Andrew, if you don’t mind, would you jump in and just kind of give us a rundown of Salesforce, which is our licensing platform for alcohol and tobacco.

ANDREW WATERS -ATCC-: Thank you, we at the ATCC are very excited to announce considerable progress has been made with the development of our licensing platform and online starting May 1st, new and renewed licenses and permits will have an updated design and when issued will be electronically sent to the applicants via their email address. we encourage all of our applicants to update their email addresses with us. We’ve been sending out notices just to make sure that everybody gets in that information ahead of this release.

ANDREW WATERS -ATCC-: As we modernize our licensing process, we are going to be moving towards allowing digital certificates to be carried by permit holders. this is going to drastically improve our transportation and vid card permitting. we want to move away from a physical piece of paper that you must keep on your person, in your wallet, in the cab of your truck, towards a digital file on your phone or tablet. this is all leading up to the launch of the online licensing portal within the next few months. which will allow applicants to fill out applications, upload documents and complete payment all online. this has been a big project for us and…

ANDREW WATERS -ATCC-: we are very excited for our users to use it and move into the future. Thank you.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: And…

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: I’m going to just build this out a little bit. Right now, what has to happen is somebody sends in an application. They send in their money. It We deposit the check. We start to process the application. We find out We send them an email and say, “Hey, there’s a problem with your application. It’s not complete.” And then we set it aside. We work on the next one.  And then we kind of wait and we wait for that applicant to send the information back in or correct your application or whatever is necessary. The nice thing about this online portal is you’re going to have a couple things. you’re going to have your own account. Another thing is you’re going to be to check the status of your application and anytime you want to check it. You don’t have to talk to a person if you don’t want to. You Always have an option to speak to a person and we’ll speak to you immediately. but you’ll be able to go online and look at the status on your account.

00:15:00

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: But even more important, I think when you’re filling out the application and associated paperwork, it simply won’t allow you to continue unless you’ve done it properly, if you failed to submit something, if you failed to mark something off, it’s going to stop you and you’re going to know right away there You’re going to know in that moment there’s a problem for you to fix. So, you’re really kind of in control about how quickly you can get turned around. Payment isn’t going to be a check. Payment can be online and done.  So that’s such a big thing and we’re really excited because we are I’m going to say weeks away now from developing Another thing that is so interesting and Andrew mentioned this about the email. You’re going to know right away when a license is issued to you because you’re going to get an email by you you’re not going to have to request it. it’s going to get it sent to you and say, “Hey, congratulations. You have a new license or your license has been renewed and here’s a copy of it in the email. You’re going to have it immediately.”

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: And then maybe equally exciting or maybe even more exciting or at least longer expected, this simple little vehicle identification card for transportation You get a permit to transport and that’s just a broad permit for a company to transport alcohol anywhere in the state.  Then each individual vehicle has to have a vehicle identification card that is a part of that permit that says you’re allowed to transport in the state. and we go through I mean 30 or 40,000 give or take 5,000 a year of these things. It’s A lot of trucking companies come into the state and don’t have them. And every individual truck has to have it. So they get stopped at a Maryland State Police way station. They’re being inspected.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: The troopers are excellent at their job. They’ll say, “Can I please see VID vehicle identification for transporting alcohol.” Nope. They’ll have one. Guess what? Drop your load off here and go down to Baltimore now, used to be Annapolis, and fill out an application and get yourself a VID card. So, virtually every day, we have trucks parked out in front of the building, people coming up here in the lobby and getting this thing. It’s been a problem for at least a decade or longer.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: and we’ve tried different solutions and we’ve never come across them. And it’s frustrating for the truckers and those businesses. It’s frustrating for our wholesalers who are waiting for shipments and can’t get them. What’s going to happen now? They’re going to be able to go online through our portal. They’re going to be able to fill out their application, make their payment online, and get this Vid Card back online immediately, not have to come to Baltimore to pick it up. It is such a huge improvement. I’m so excited about it. So, I just wanted to expound even more. That’s Andrew and his team getting this done. This is such a big problem that’s being solved.

Robert Poole: Hey Jeeoff, I have a rookie question. What is the purpose of this vid card?

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Okay, I’m going to now so I’m going to give you the answer that’s going to sound smart and I don’t mean for it because then I’ll add to it. First of all, the law says you have to have one. that’s the easy answer is the law says every vehicle has to have one of these things. That’s  The reasons for that is we like to think anyway that we are controlling and are aware of every ounce of alcohol that’s coming into the state legally and going through the state and staying in the state. and that’s all part of that is being able to have a complete firm trail of all of that alcohol and think of it this way.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Our alcohol control system is so good. I think in the United States actually Maryland certainly and in the United States you don’t see a lot about people getting sick on alcohol in our country. You do see it in around the world and I get articles a couple of them a month from around the world where people are getting very sick or dying from tainted alcohol counterfeit product. You don’t see that in the United States. You definitely aren’t seeing it in Maryland. Knock on wood because we can account for that.  We can follow our product back to its original source and it’s only because we control every aspect of it. And that’s just a part of it is knowing where it came in, what truck it came in on, who was bringing it in, we know all of that. If we have to find it, we can do it. And if there is a problem that a product is potentially dangerous, even if everything about it was legit, but something got screwed up, we can trace it back and we can start making notifications very quickly to stop sales and to stop distribution of the product.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: So, it’s about controlling it and it’s about controlling it for really public health and…

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: safety. Hey,…

Robert Poole: I thought that was the answer.

Robert Poole: I just want to see you jump through that hoop, Jeff.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: thank you. Thanks for throwing it out there for me.

Alan Silverstein: That’s why he gets the big bucks.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: That’s That’s right. So, any questions of Andrew before we let him go to jump on this other meeting?

Alan Silverstein: Andrew, Congratulations to your team.

00:20:00

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Thanks, So, Additional reports that Andrew maybe have been able to give out but is just simply that this month is our renewal month. our state licenses expire on April 30th. there are about again always give or take 1100 licenses and I say that I emphasize licenses because we also issue permits and there’s just a vast difference between what a license is and a permit. we issue about,00 licenses a year.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: We issue thousands and thousands of permits every year. Those are some people inside of Maryland, but even more so, it’s entities outside of Maryland. Think of it this way. Wineries that are out of the state that need that want to ship into our state, they get permits from Manufacturers outside of our state, like Annheiser, Bush, Kors, Molson, they all make product outside of our state. They’re permit holders for We issue thousands of those. this period of time is for the licenses and just to let you know as I said about 1100 of them around 500 or 43% have completed their renewal. I’m really happy to say in a very uncharacteristic way that we are completely caught up. The fact there are 57% not renewed are not on us. They’re not sitting on a desk and not waiting. We’re not backlogged. We’re able to keep up. It’s just that they haven’t simply come in.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: The bad news is there’s two weeks to go and my guess is we’re going to get inundated with these requests for renewals within the next two weeks. But happy to say there’s no backlog on our end. We are caught up and we’re almost halfway through. all good news and that’s all part of Andrew’s shop as well. Regarding our regular stuff each month, enforcement guys have been busy like they always are. they conducted 183 alcohol inspections, 391 tobacco inspections, 319 cannabis inspections. From all of those, there were 21 reportable incidents. Something rising to the level of writing a report and conducting a little bit more of an investigation than just a simple inspection. Those incidents yielded 92,087 sticks of other tobacco products with a tax loss of almost $65,000.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: 1,675 packs of cigarettes, which yielded a tax loss of $4,955, and 154 containers of alcohol, yielding a tax loss of $218. So, they’ve been pretty busy. I think I mentioned to you earlier, we’re getting close to being done. we’ve been just conducting some inspections and really more of a scientific survey to find out that kind of who and I guess also to ensure that people are collecting the appropriate tobacco tax and remitting it appropriately as they should be. We’re nearly finished our survey and hopefully within by our next meeting anyway. I’d hope that we’d have all of that inspection and survey done and we’re starting to put together a report on behalf of the commission.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: also by the next time we meet we will have conducted two additional webinars. We did our first webinar back at the end of January I believe it was which was an introduction to entrepreneurship and alcohol in Maryland just to get people interested in the idea. that was our first one. That was just an overview really of alcohol in Maryland. The next three are going to demystify each of our three tiers of alcohol distribution in the state. the very next one is at the end of this month and that is about our manufacturing tier. So we’re going to have a representative from one of our wineries and a representative from one of our distilleries to talk about one their business and how others might get into business and the challenges and successes and rewards of being a business and also about ancillary businesses that support them which we don’t think about.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: But when you think about a manufacturer, there’s a manufacturer, but there might be an ancillary business that does bottling for you that someone An entrepreneur might be interested in that. Or providing the cans if you’re canning or helping you with artwork or labels. There are so many businesses around that. We’re trying to give the menu of opportunity that the alcohol industry provides to entrepreneurs who maybe are interested but had no idea. We’re just trying to take away some of the mystery of that industry.  So end of the month we’re going to have manufacturers and then in May we’re going to be doing the same with our second tier which are the wholesale levels. Again explaining what wholesaling is, challenges of breaking into it as a wholesaler but even more importantly and maybe equally importantly is what other opportunities and businesses support our wholesalers.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Next will be in June it’ll be the retailers and then if all that goes well and things go well according to our plan at the TCC. we will have maybe one more webinar if we can get it in which will be support to entrepreneurs. Somebody who’s interested in being how do I get started? Where do I get my license and going? How do I get funding? Does a small business administration help me out? Are there banks who will issue loans for us? Just that kind of a thing to present logistics for somebody who might want to go that next step and get involved.  So, that’s coming up. I’m going to ask Tom to jump in with a legislative update. But before we do, we’ve been so busy the last couple of weeks. The general assembly ended a week and a half ago. we didn’t stop. The very next day, we were already working toward our webinar series. And I’m going to ask Jess to queue up in just a moment for it’s about a minute or two kind of a commercial, if you will. Our first place we went to was Checker Spot Brewing, which is actually very close to here.

00:25:00

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: We’re going to be doing the same thing for Cleopatra Wines and Compass Distillery. The idea here is instead of in a static way of our webinar, me saying and here’s the owner of Checker Spot and here’s the owner of Cleopatra and here’s the owner of Compass, we went out to their site, took some video, did a little interview and kind of the intent here is to have them interview themselves and talk about themselves and talk about their businesses as a way of introducing them and then we’ll do the webinar questionnaire after that. So Jess, if you’re in a position to be able to do that, if you’d please roll that. we’ll just take a look at what we’re going to be doing for each of our manufacturers and for our wholesalers as well for these programs. So Jess, please, if you can.

Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-: Yeah, I got you. Can you guys see it?

Robert Poole: There you go.

Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-: Or it should be like a black screen, I guess.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Yeah, it’s getting ready. there’s no volume with that chess. I

Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-: All right, I’m going to go ahead and start it over having the lighting.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Yeah, it’s not working, Jess. No,…

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: we’re not getting anything. let we’ll play with this for a couple of minutes and go through the other and hopefully we can bring it back on for you.

Robert Poole: Hey Jeff,…

Robert Poole: while she’s checking and figuring that out, quick question. How are you advertising these webinars? I think it’s a fantastic idea and I think the broader the spectrum of applicants, the better.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Great question. that’s part of why we wanted to show you this here is that hopefully other people who are tuned in will see it as well and get the word out. we’re going to be putting on our egov delivery or delivery gov push out which has thousands of subscribers. we’re sending all of these out and have continually been doing and we will with this as well to our trade associations so that they can send it out to their memberships. We’ve sent it out to elected officials and ask them for help as well. They all have newsletters. that’s going to put it out on in their newsletters to say, “Hey, if you think you might be interested, it’s free. Tune in. it doesn’t cost anything.” So,…

Robert Poole: What about all the local colleges in the state?

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: you have I don’t know that we’ve sent anything. I don’t know if we have a contact for them. if you have any help on that, that would be interesting. I don’t know. I just don’t know…

Eric Morrissette: Okay.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: because they’re not in our field of influence.

Robert Poole: It’s a great idea.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: But we’re not shutting down any options or any possibility. We want to get it out there as much as we possibly can.  Yeah, I mean we’re very excited about it and I’m not sure we’re going to be able to see this. If we can, that’s great. But Jess, you have any confidence that it might fire up?

Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-: I Not sure…

Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-: why you guys aren’t able to see it because it’s showing as presenting on my screen right now. yeah,…

Robert Poole: You have to enable the sound,…

Robert Poole: but you have to do it in a different menu.

Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-: the sound is on. so you guys are saying you can see it but you can’t hear it. Is that right?

Eric Morrissette: That’s right.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Yeah. Can hear you but can’t hear it.

Eric Morrissette: I just Yeah.

Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-: Okay, let’s try this again.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Because we can send this to each of you individually and…

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: we’ll be happy to do that as a link which will be great but I was hoping to get the free advertisement for it while we have others online as well.

Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-: Yeah, I’m just going to try and…

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Thought we’d be Yeah.

Jessica Honeycutt -ATCC-: turn up the volume quickly and then we’ll see if it will work. Yeah. All right.

00:30:00

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: No, it’s not working, Jess. we will send you this link and…

Alan Silverstein: Yeah, just send it to us.

Alan Silverstein: That’d be great.

Eric Morrissette: Yeah. I just had a quick question.

Eric Morrissette: A Statement being on the university front I’m just down the block from the University of Maryland and my wife teaches there. So, happy to share it with folks there. Happy No,…

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: and some little information about it. So, please do that’ be wonderful.

Eric Morrissette: happy to do. I just have a general question because I assume that a lot of folks might be who participate might have questions about what does the tariffs mean for me and what relief might you all have available or be aware of? because I’m just hearing. Yeah.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: for the tariff. That’s hard to say. I don’t know. It’s funny. We were at Cleopatra Winery yesterday doing this commercial also preparing one for that company and she brought that up the concern about tariffs. I think the only I don’t know…

Eric Morrissette: Yeah.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: because I don’t know how much the industry relies on outofcountry goods. in order to continue business. I don’t know that there is a big draw because think about A Maryland winery to be a Maryland winery and to stick Maryland on the label is using Maryland product. They’re using Maryland fruit and juice. So, that wouldn’t hit them. I don’t know that they’re buying their cans, their aluminum or their glass from overseas. So, I don’t know that that would hit them. The bigger hit might be for those Maryland businesses that are shipping out of the country and the tariffs they would feel.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: I just don’t know that they’re receiving product that’s being tariffed and they’re getting hit for that. I just don’t know at all. But if they’re trying to get their product to become international, that could would be an issue. But shouldn’t say any. I don’t think most of our companies are there…

Eric Morrissette: Yeah, that’s right.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: where they’re big enough to be shipping there. There are a handful that could, but most of them just don’t make enough.

Alan Silverstein: I would think on the retail side,…

Eric Morrissette: I Yeah.

Alan Silverstein: any company that’s making their product overseas, and shipping it to us, consumers might see it on the retail side. Yeah.

Eric Morrissette: The only reason why I asked I found myself reading an article about a wine company in California, but they get the barrels from overseas and they do all the actual work in manufacturing happening wasn’t domestically, but the product being a constraint in that being a kind of binding constraint for them as they kind of make their wines.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: That’s a great example…

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: because I would say this young lady yesterday at the winery told us that when she buys but this is outside of the tariffs buying a barrel in the United States is about $600.

Eric Morrissette: Yeah.  Yeah.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Buying a barrel from Europe is about $1,200. But it’s that they’re looking for certain qualities and features in those barrels that they’re bringing in. So, I don’t know that it’s a tariff thing yet. it’s more of a quality that they think re getting that they’re buying that. But I see Mr. Bob Douglas is online with us today.  And Bob, know if the tariffs have impacted our Maryland wholesalers who are importing product from out of the country. Yeah.

Bob Douglas: I think it’s a wait and see basically for them right now. But obviously there is a concern. Take Guinness which ships a lot and so any tariff on the imports there you’re going to feel it at the bar and…

Alan Silverstein: Yeah. Heat.

Bob Douglas: I don’t know what the impact is on in Maryland the Guinness brewery here.

Eric Morrissette: Yeah.  That’s it.

Bob Douglas: I mean that the blonde is obviously brewed here so a tariff should not affect them…

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: So, it’s going to be hard to say, I think, until we start see some of that ruling in.

Bob Douglas: but I don’t know where they get their products. I don’t know where they get their cans.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: I don’t know where they get those. I know that the Guinness Brewery here ships in a lot, but they’re buying it from a wholesaler. I think they’re getting a lot of it, I I don’t want to say that now. I could be misspoken…

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: because it’s a little bit of an unusual circumstance, but regardless, they are getting their product ultimately from Ireland. so if it’s subject to tariffs, they’re paying that

Bob Douglas: Right. I think Nick Manis is on the call also and…

Bob Douglas: he probably has insights in terms of beer.

Nicholas Manis: Yeah. Number one, Guinness doesn’t brew blonde anymore they don’t brew much of anything at that site. But you’re right, Chef, they do what they import in is Guinness and it has to go through the wholesaler. But like you, Bob, we don’t know the impact at this point.

Eric Morrissette: No, no, I appreciate you guys just like engaging the point. I only ask in part because I assume that folks will ask some similar questions during these forums.

Eric Morrissette: 

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: People I say it was a topic of discussion yesterday when we were just kind of having the cuff conversation about things and…

Eric Morrissette: Yeah, that’s fair.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: just not knowing it’s the unknown right now.

Alan Silverstein: So Jeff,…

Alan Silverstein: while we’re talking about impacts, the state has approved new sales tax on marijuana. They’ve increased that. I didn’t have they done anything with beer and wine that you’re aware of? Okay.

00:35:00

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: No, not recently. the Maryland state sales tax is 6%. And then a few years ago, we started doing something a little innovative for Maryland,…

Alan Silverstein: Right. Thank

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: and that was having different sales tax rates for different types of products. And I think that started with alcohol. and alcohol was raised from 6% sales tax to 9% sales tax. And that’s where it remains today. Alcohol remains there. Cannabis came in at 9% and is being increased and I don’t recall Tom jump in if you don’t mind. It’s either 12% or So 12%.

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: 12%

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Then on the idea on the electronic smoking devices none of that is subjected to an excise tax which is always pre commercial sales.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: almost all of our products are subject to excise tax but the electronic smoking devices are not but they have the e enhanced sales and use tax of 20% for electronic smoking devices except that if I’m making it’s a small cartridge of 60 milliliter or so it’s maybe even smaller than that maybe it’s a half a milliliter or something but it’s a very small cartridge that a refillable juice product for electronic smoking devices those are taxed at 60% %.

Alan Silverstein: Okay.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: So there are a variety of different sales tax rates, but Mr. Chair, you specific to your question about alcohol, it’s at 9% and remains there.

Robert Poole: So Jeeoff,…

Robert Poole: I’m sorry. Quick question. So, when you say alcohol, are you talking about distilled spirits, meaning liquor, beer, and wine? they’re all taxed differently, but by the proof gallon.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: You’re completely correct all the way around. So with the tax for distilled spirits is $150 a gallon.

Robert Poole: Okay.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: For wine, it’s 40 nts For beer, it’s 9 cents a gallon.

Alan Silverstein: Thank

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: But at the end of the day, all of that is subject to an additional 9% sales tax at the point of retail purchase.

Robert Poole: Thanks, Jeff.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: This fun discussion. This is a lot of fun. Any other questions about that Great. then I’d like to go ahead and bring Tom in, director of our legal legislative division, just to give us a quick rundown of what we experienced and I’d say one of our big successes from the 2025 legislative session. So, Tom, please jump in.

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: Thank you Jeffoff for the opportunity and Mr. Chair members of the commission just had a quick PowerPoint slide to just touch on a couple of the statewide bills in particular that are passed this legislative session which impact operations. So Jessica if you go to the next slide.  So, can we go back? I think we went a couple of slides forward.

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: so when we get to the first slide it’s actually kind of a coincidence or serendipity that Nick and Bob brought up Guinness because one of the bills that were passed this first session or that it’s a statewide bill is Senate Bill 1039 and it impacted class  five breweries. And there’s a little bit of history here where when the Guinness Brewery was created, that specific location, Baltimore County, there was law that was passed that allowed a certain amount of finished product which is the Guinness that’s brewed in Ireland which is brought to Opengate Brewery located in Baltimore County and sold there for onremise consumption.

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: when that bill passed years ago, that was the only specific brewery in the state of Maryland that was allowed to do that. any class 5 brewery that fits the model that Guinness does, for instance, which is a Japanese beer, if the owner of Sapurro wanted to open up a brewery in the state of Maryland, they could do something similar to what the Guinness Brewery is doing in Baltimore County where they take a finished product.  In that case, it’d be a finished product from Japan and bring it in on premise sales. Here, what this bill did is it raised the percentage essentially the number of barrels of beer that Guinness could bring from se on premise to be sold for remise consumption.

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: So in the case of Guinness, this allows them to bring in all reality about maybe 50 to 75 more barrels of beer from Ireland of the Guinness stout that’s finished, which is the most popular beer that they sell on premises to be consumed on premises. And so this takes effect on July 1st. any questions about this specific bill?

00:40:00

Robert Poole: So they have in order to allow them that increase in importation and…

Robert Poole: you have to be affiliated with that particular brewery overseas. Correct.

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: And so it the very good question commissioner.

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: So essentially because Open Gate Brewery, i.e. Diagio owns the Guinness brand and OpenGate Brewery, they have another affiliate in Ireland which they also own and which brews this Finnish product and they bring it here in the United States.  I think at the time and I was not here at the time when this legislation passed. I was still with Baltimore City at the time this legislation passed. That was the big thing that Dagio wanted was they weren’t going to finish the product here in the state of Maryland. They wanted the product finished in Ireland. I think that was the way the product was created. Product was crafted and finished there and then brought here.

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: So it’s one the few features of this specific class 5 that allows a finished product to be brought from off- premises on premises to be sold at the Guinness Brewery.

Robert Poole: Thank you.

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: Anybody have any other questions? If not, we can go to the next slide. this is a departmental bill.  We’re really excited about House Bill 12 and Senate Bill 214 and it addresses TH offenses. So, just a little bit of context for this bill. When the Cannabis Reform Act was passed in 2023, the legislature rightly and I think one of the few legislators to do this because they had the foresight was they didn’t regulate intoxicating THC.

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: They didn’t regulate cannabis by just saying it’s marijuana or it’s hemp. What they did was they said if a product that you’re selling has certain levels of intoxicating THC, in the case of Maryland, it’s 5 milligrams per serving or more than 2.5 milligrams per package, you need a license from the Maryland Cannabis Administration to sell this product.  So the Maryland legislature had learned, kind of in looking at all the other states that if they didn’t get hemp under control, which also is able to produce an intoxicating THC, which can be run through a process where at the end of this process, you’ve heard delta 8 and delta 10 and products like this that could be considered intoxicating THC product. So they wanted to wrap their arms around all of the intoxicating products.

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: And so when they did this, they passed legislation and they said, “ATC, you’re tasked with the responsibility of going after the icit And the illicit market are folks that are selling these intoxicating THC products above those thresholds without a license.”  And so what we found was when we went out and we actually began to go out in October of 2023, we’re starting to educate people, give them information, tell them compliance is coming. We’re going to go out and starting to seize these products. Lo and behold, in October of 2023, the Washington County Circuit Court issued an injunction.

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: and it instructed the ATCC that you cannot enforce the cannabis laws under the cannabis reform act against folks that were selling intoxicating THC products without a license. These hemp derived products but who were in business before July 1st, 2023. So we had to recalibrate our efforts in terms of the group of folks that were where we focus our enforcement activity.  And so in this process when we were enforcing the laws against these folks that were selling these products, we had to go through a constitutional process because the legislature wanted to ensure that when enforcing the laws, due process is followed. So what this means is we would go out to these locations, purchase via a covert buy some intoxicating product.

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: And a lot of these intoxicating THC products that are being sold without a license are actually being sold by tobacco stores. This is what we’re seeing. This is the experience in Maryland. And so we would go covertly in purchase a product, get it tested by a lab, which is actually out in Philadelphia. It would take us about 45 days to get that product tested. Once we would verify that that product is hot, we would bring it back and we would charge the individual for selling a product without a license.  and then that case would make it into the district court and the case would be heard and then the case would be adjudicated. If you follow that track from covert buy to testing outside of the state to bring it back charging the crime and getting district court, you’re really looking at about six months between the covert purchase of one product and the actual adjudication.

00:45:00

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: the problem is once we got an adjudication we could only go back and ask the court to say we want you district court to disallow the business that we charged with this violation from selling this specific product. So we could go in and maybe get a court order to seize all of that specific product that we had tested. But by the time we got back to the store they weren’t selling that product anymore.  So, this was what our officers were running up against. And in running up against this, I’m sorry, Jeff, you’re coming off. Did you want to add something? in running up against this, what we did was we spoke with our officers about what they thought would be most impactful. And I’m very proud to say that it was the idea from our field enforcement division that led to the drafting of this legislation and presentation before the legislature.

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: And what this legislation actually does is it says that if we go in to any store in the state of Maryland that is selling intoxicating THC products and if those products are being sold by somebody without an MCA license, and those products aren’t labeled or packaged and are the certain potency levels that are ascribed by the MCA,  then we can actually seize products and they are contraband per se. We could take them right off the shelf. We don’t need a warrant. It’s a almost think of it as a truth in labeling bill.

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: and by that I mean if you were to go into an MCA licensed establishment and you are a commercial customer, not a medical patient, but a commercial customer, if you were to go in, you could only buy products who could buy a package of gummies, for instance, and that gummies couldn’t be any more than 100 milligrams of THC, and each gummy could be no more than 10 milligrams of THC. so what we were finding in these stores that were not licensed were gummies that were two 300 mg of THC. We were finding packages that were in the thousands of milligs of THC’s. And this is not allowed by law. And so what this bill allows us to do is go in there and go into these stores that don’t have licenses, look at their packaging, and say, “We believe you.

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: This package here looks like it’s got cartoon characters. Looks like it’s targeting children. Looks like it doesn’t have childproof ceiling and it says that, we’ve got thousands of milligrams of THAC. Guess what? We’re going to take that product off the shelves and we’re going to give you an opportunity to be heard and if you have a license and you can prove that this product is in compliance with Maryland law, then you can get your product back. so this is essentially what this bill does. It almost creates that strict liability standard for products that advertise themselves to be intoxicating THC products. And I want to be clear, there’s a difference between intoxicating THC products and CBD and all of those other things. This is only affecting these intoxicating THC products for human consumption.

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: And so that’s the bill in and of itself. welcome to take questions. and then one other thing of note, this bill also allows us to issue citations to enforce parts of the criminal law article dealing with sales to minors of Delta 8 and Delta 10 products. So, prior to this legislation, the ATCC has limited jurisdiction.  We can only do what the alcoholic beverages and cannabis article allows us to do. That authority is explicit. And so what this bill allowed us to do was explicitly enforce that provision of the criminal law article. That’s why we had to include it in this bill. so with that I can take any questions that you have. I see Bob has a question.

Eric Morrissette: It’s had a quick question just did any additional resources come in as a consequence of the legislation?

Alan Silverstein: Go ahead,…

Alan Silverstein: It popped.

Bob Douglas: I don’t have a question. I don’t know how it indicated that I do.

Alan Silverstein: It popped up that you had a hand.

Bob Douglas: Then that was an accident. didn on my end. I don’t see that. I’m sorry.

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: your hand.

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: The so great great question,…

Eric Morrissette: Is it passed or is it still if

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: The legislation passed and…

Eric Morrissette: And the real question is did any additional resources come in as a consequence of these additional responsibilities to act

00:50:00

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: was signed into law by the governor on April 8th 2025. It was one of the first bills that was signed. And additional resources came in as a result of this legislation, but I think the general assembly provided us with approximately 14 new agents in when it passed the Cannabis Reform Act in 2023. We hired all of those agents into 2024.

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: We’re actually in the process and I defer to the executive director to go in a little bit more in terms of finishing up the hiring process for all of our agents, but we believe that with the agents that we have on hand. We can really wrap our arms around this problem and we’re going to be tracking data, monitoring, kind of the workload and if we see that there’s more of a workload,… we’ll report back to the legislature.  But our best guess quite honestly, Commissioner, is that we’re going to see an uptick in our enforcement, we’ll see a plateau and then a drop in terms of the illicit market.

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: 

Eric Morrissette: Okay. Right.

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: Because and really the goal of the legislature in creating this enforcement power for the ATCC were to drive people to the commercial market and we think once we get this illicit product really wrap our arms around getting this illicit product off the shelves we’ll see more individuals go into the commercial market.

Eric Morrissette: And you don’t have any concerns that you don’t have sufficient capacity to take to address the kind of spike and kind of search surge kind

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: 

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: No, not at this time. I would defer to my executive director if he has more to say on this issue.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: I always say I think our bigger concern this is a tool to help us do our job more efficiently and really just to be more effective. Instead of taking off one product, we’re going to be to take them The only concern and it’s not even concerned because we don’t know what to expect is our storage of contraband product.

Eric Morrissette: Yeah.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: We expect that to go up significantly. So hopefully we have sufficient room for that storage. And I’d say one other thing this bill doesn’t do is it doesn’t impact the injunction that we’re living under today from Washington County. So those people who are operating the way they were and today will continue to operate that way post July 1, 2025 if the court hasn’t decided that case in some other fashion.

Eric Morrissette: That’s super helpful.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: So it’s not impacting them.

Alan Silverstein: Jeff, on that injunction,…

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: They continue to still operate the way they were before under that injunction.

Alan Silverstein: is that only for Washington County?

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: It’s the state.

Alan Silverstein: Statewide. Okay,…

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: It’s the whole state.

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: statewide. Great.

Robert Poole: Actually, you guys did such an awesome job.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Okay. Great.

Alan Silverstein: good. Robert, do you have a question?

Robert Poole: You answered it preemptively. Thank you.

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: If we don’t have any more questions, we’re already on the slide.  This is the last statewide bill that was passed and it addresses electronic smoking devices. I think two maybe three important points here. This authorizes the executive director to seize ESD products that are offered in sale of violation of the business regulations article.  So, a very clear-cut example of this is if we were to go into a store and it was selling electronic smoking devices and it did not have a license, this bill would allow us to seize all of those products automatically because they are being offered for sale in violation of the business regulations article which requires you to have a license to sell these products. So, that’s just a really good example of what it allows us to do. that’s one thing.

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: The other thing is that it increases the recordkeeping requirements of electronic smoking device wholesalers or wholesale distributors and wholesale importers.  And so what that means is, you heard a really good description that the executive director made when he was talking about tracking alcoholic beverages and how in the state of Maryland, why we permit and issue these permits and issue these licenses to all these players within the industry is because we do a really good job of tracking those beverages from when they are created to when they are shipped into the state to when they’re sold

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: to a retailer. This bill starts to do that for electronic smoking devices in terms of tracking the product from who it was sold to, keeping these records on premise so that we can inspect them at any time. And so that was also a benefit of  The last piece of this bill it was a small piece but I do think it will be impactful particularly to limit access of electronic smoking devices to underage individuals and what I mean by that is it eliminates the ability of outofstate manufacturers to sell directly to a consumer in Maryland.

00:55:00

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: So, if you had an electronic smoking devices manufacturing license and you were based in Ohio, under current law, you could actually sell a product to somebody who was of age, be online, fill out information, and get that product shipped directly to your house. with the passage of this bill, effective July 1st, that stops.  So, the only way you’re going to be getting electronic smoking devices is mail, not by internet, but either go essentially by going to a bricks and mortar store in the state of Maryland, whether that’s a vape shop vendor or another retailer. you have multiple options. So, that’s essentially what this Senate Bill 842. Does anybody have any questions about this great.

Thomas Akras -ATCC-: that covers it for I think the big statewide bills like everything else. There were a number of local alcoholic beverage bills that passed, but nothing that necessarily impacted statewide ATCC practices. So, we’ll be coming out with our legislative manual in the next couple months and we’ll be touching on all those bills and distributing that to the public. So, if you have any questions, comments or concerns, please feel free to reach out to me.  And that is the end of my presentation.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Thank you, And then I’ll just close out with one last thing and that is one of our mandates is to provide some kind of level platform of training to inspectors across the state which again out interestingly at the retail level the retail licenses are issued by all of the local jurisdictions. There are 25 alcohol jurisdictions in the state and each of those use various different forms of doing their inspections locally.  Whether it’s hiring local police, state police, sheriff’s office, or having their own group of inspectors, one of our jobs is to provide training so they all have access to this Very excited to announce that the beginning of May, so by the time of our next meeting, it will have been done. we’re going to be providing person live training. it’ll be conducted here at our headquarters.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: A portion of it will be classroom training about inspection and investigative processes and techniques really specific to current events in our alcohol industry, certain types of violations or schemes if you will that we’re seeing.  We’ll share all this classroom data with them and then we’re very grateful to be near a wonderful manufacturing retail establishment and we’re going to be able to use their facility and some of their employees and actors to create real scenarios that we’ll be able to roleplay walk these newly trained inspectors through. So they’ll get a chance to take some of what we hopefully have taught them in classroom and see what it looks like and actually use it in a real life inspection scenario.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: So that’s going to occur the first week of May. We just put the announcement out for that today. generally speaking, there’s a big appetite for this kind of training.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: So I expect that we’ll fill up rather quickly, but we’re really looking forward to that and exciting and it’ll be something we can report out on next month as well. So Mr. Chair and members, all commissioners,…

Alan Silverstein: Is there a certificate that’ll be issued for those individuals…

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: thank you for giving us I’m sorry.

Alan Silverstein: who go through that program? Are you going to have paper certificate or something recognition of Right.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: 

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: We very well may do that. That is something we typically would do just to give them some recognition that they’ve been here and to show that they’re doing and It works for us to show that we’ve given the training and again I think it’s something that’s good for their individual files and records to know that they’ve been through the training with us.

Alan Silverstein: Yeah, you can do it on your computer and…

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: It’s good thought.

Alan Silverstein: print it out. But I think something like that that they can hang in their office shows the value of what we’re doing.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Yeah, that’s an important function that we provide as well. so, Mr. Chair and commissioners, if there’s no other questions,…

Alan Silverstein: Is there any new business to come before us?

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: that’s our report.

Alan Silverstein: Okay, I just want to say that I think it was an excellent meeting. Thank you for the information. congratulations to you Mr. Kelly and…

Alan Silverstein: the rest of the staff for doing an outstanding job and we look forward to seeing you next month.

1. Rosarion: second. Absolutely.

Robert Poole: Totally. Thank you guys very much,…

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Great. You’re good.

Alan Silverstein: I need motion for adjournment.

Robert Poole: Tom. Thank you.

Eric Morrissette: How much motion?

Alan Silverstein: Need a second.

Eric Morrissette: How much?

Alan Silverstein: Okay, door came. Are you The motion second. All those in favor signify by saying I.

Robert Poole: Hi Take care,

Eric Morrissette: All right.

Alan Silverstein: I. Oppose. Same sign. Thank you all very much.

Meeting ended after 00:59:53 👋

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