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ATCC Public Meeting #57, SEPTEMBER 2025 at 3:00pm – 2025/09/18 14:40 EDT – Transcript

Transcript

Alan Silverstein: Got a quorum.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Let’s see here.

Alan Silverstein: At 256.

Alan Silverstein: So, we have four minutes.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: So, how I think your clock might be off and…

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: and I’m not 100% but I see a couple I’ve got 259 by a couple of clocks I’m looking at.

Alan Silverstein: My computer, what? You’re right. On my watch, it is too. Okay.

Alan Silverstein: little hand gets on the big hand. It’ll be 3:00 on my watch. So, we’ll go by that. Yeah, you like that. Nice tie.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Nice jersey.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Thank you.

Alan Silverstein: All right, it’s 3:00. We’re going to call the September 18th, 2023 Alcohol, Tobacco, and Cannabis Commission to order. I’m opening the meeting with a roll call.

Eric Morrissette: I

Alan Silverstein: I have Commissioner Durkane Rosarian. I have Vice Chair Eric Morsette. And so we have a quorum. So we’re going to begin. I need approval of the August 21st, 2025 meeting minutes. Need a motion.

Alan Silverstein: Need a second. Dane, can I get a second from you?

Dourakine Rosarion: I second.

Alan Silverstein: All those in favor signify by saying I.

Eric Morrissette: All right.

Alan Silverstein: I. Same thing. The eyes have it.

Robert: Alan, I’m on the call.

Alan Silverstein: Mr. Kelly. Who’s on?

Eric Morrissette: Robert

Alan Silverstein: Robert.

Robert: The other thing.

Alan Silverstein: Didn’t see your name. Thank you. be noted that Mr. P is here with Mr. Kelly, executive director’s report.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Sir, Mr. Chairman,… thank you very much. let me just start off by showing how little I’m needed anymore. I have such a terrific crew that I work with that I deliver the soft news now and then for the meat stuff I turn over to my colleague. So I’ll start with the soft stuff first. just one thing of The appellet court of Maryland almost a year ago held a hearing on the injunction that we are currently operating under. an injunction that was issued by Washington County Circuit Court that in essence forbade us from taking enforcement action in our THC role against any business that was lawfully operating prior to July 1, 2023. And I know you all are familiar with that. I’m just setting the framework here for this. there was an appeal made. It went to the appellet court of Maryland.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: 

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: And it was almost a year ago that hearing took place. Just about a week and a half ago, maybe last week or a week and a half ago or so, the appellet court came out with its decision. And I believe Jessica has forwarded that decision to all of you. it’s a lengthy decision, but it’s a pretty interesting read because there’s a lot of things there. But the long and short is the appellet court has upheld the general assembly’s law concerning cannabis and THC and has found that the law should stand and in doing so is ordering or will be ordering that the circuit court’s decision to issue an injunction be reversed.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: What that means or maybe more of what it doesn’t mean is we may not start enforcing the law as written today. it’s a procedural issue now that need to take place in that the appellet court We’ll send a notice to the Washington County judge who issued the injunction and essentially tell that judge to withdraw that order and…

Robert: What?

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: once that order has been withdrawn then we can start a regular enforcement without hindrance. Of course, it could be that the plaintiffs at any point may file for an additional review by the Supreme Court of Maryland. And if that happens, I don’t really know what’ll be next. It all depends. It could be that another injunction is issued. It could be that we’re allowed to begin enforcing the law as the General Assembly envisioned we would. in any event, we’ll see.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: But we’re probably midocctober before we really have a firm understanding of what it is we may be able to do and when we may be able to start or…

Alan Silverstein: Thank you.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: So hopefully by next month’s meeting, we’ll have some real answers for you, but at least things are moving one way or the other right now. That’s one thing. And the second, this is real softball stuff, but it’s something that we enjoy doing each year and I’m going to mention it to you because if anyone’s interested, start thinking about letting me know if you want to be notified. the last couple of years as an agency, we’ve gone out to a charitable organization somewhere and just did a day of service where we volunteered to help out where we could. So, we’re going to do that again and we’re getting ready to start planning. If any of you’re interested, great. If you just want me to let you know along the way and want me to nail it down, you can come or not, that’s fine, too. I’m happy to do that. But it’s a great time of secondarily creating camaraderie amongst our agencies.

00:05:00

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: and the chair was with us last year.

Alan Silverstein: What else?

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: I think it’s a little tiring but it’s a good tiring and it’s a good time together and then primarily you’re really helping people and…

Robert: Daddy. I focus.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: getting to connect with people who need a little bit of help and you’re really elevating your own mood and spirit by being there and helping. So it’s something we enjoy doing. It’s become part of our regular operating procedure and unless there’s objection, I’ll just send out a notice of when and where we’re going to be doing these things and then if you can join us, I think You’ll be pleased with what your agency is doing and you’ll be pleased with what you get out of it. I’m sure many of you are very charitable So, that’s the easy stuff. to report on what it is we do every month, I’m going to call in Jeff Hearnen first to report on field enforcement and the activity they’ve had in the past month.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: And I can just tell you our reports now since July 1 are like they haven’t been before because we’re doing some things. So Jeff, why don’t you go ahead and take that

Jeffrey Herndon -ATCC-: Okay, good afternoon,…

Jeffrey Herndon -ATCC-: ladies and gentlemen. getting to the horsepower for the month of August. Our agents were busy conducting routine inspections at retail locations around the state. They accounted for 173 alcohol inspections,…

Robert: It’s awesome.

Jeffrey Herndon -ATCC-: 260 tobacco inspections, and 211 inspections looking for unlicensed THC cannabis products in various retail locations. As a result of those inspections, 51 packs of cigarettes were seized for either being unstamped, improperly stamped without estate stamps or counterfeit stamps, which is a major issue that we’re dealing with right now. And we had almost 6,000 packages of other tobacco products seized.

Jeffrey Herndon -ATCC-: And the two of those together gave us an estimated excise tax loss to the state of almost $7,000. And as far as the alcohol is concerned, there was almost 90 gallons of spilled distilled spirits or liquor that was seized during the month. The other elephant in the room has been the THC and the intoxicating hemp products. and unlicensed possession sale of those. So with the agents going around the state, they confiscated almost 15,000 packages of illicit THC product along with 26.5 pounds with that, the estimated retail value was assigned $290,000 worth of product that was seized and that’s for the month of August.

Jeffrey Herndon -ATCC-: So yeah, that’s been Yes.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Yeah, thanks Jeeoff.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Yeah, and just to say flour is the vegetable material. It’s stuff more likely to be smoked as opposed to a gummy or something like that. Just to clarify. So, any questions on the enforcement activity? All right. And this is also our big time of the year for our largest renewal period, which is that of all of our permits. So, I’ll turn it over to Andrew who directs that entire operation, our licensing and permitting function in addition to other things. Andrew, can you take it from here?

ANDREW WATERS -ATCC-: Sure, Jeff. Thank you. just a quick update, we’re about 25% through our October renewals. just to give some context, that’s about 5,000 permits alto together. we’ve got over a month left. The expiration date is October 31st. but ideally, we’d love to get a head start on that, make sure we don’t get too much on the back end, but things are going very well. since our last meeting, we’ve also issued 52 new licenses and permits. the feedback from our one-stop online portal continues to be very positive. we’ve received several calls asking about, how do I use it? How does this work? and…

ANDREW WATERS -ATCC-: they generally all end with wow that was so easy. can’t wait for next year. So things are going very well and I’ll leave it at that for now.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Thanks, Andrew.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: And that’s what we want. And again, we’re very very pleased with the online system and how that’s operating for us. It’s been a huge blessing to have that. Mr. Chair, I think that’s about everything we have for this month. And again, we’re happy to have any questions or if there’s anything you want some more information on, we’re happy to dig it up for you. We are in the process, I should say, a variety of reports that are due, which will be our annual alcohol tobacco tax report, which is done every year. our tobacco sales to undered consumers, underage now means people under 21,…

00:10:00

Robert: That’s just

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: not necessarily minors, under 21. We do a report on that each year. And we are going to be publishing a report soon.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: It’s in the stages of really being finalized. based on a study we did, and we think we’ve done, if I haven’t told you about this before, a fairly scientific study to get a sense of the vape tax in the state, there’s an enhanced sales tax, not an excise tax like there is for tobacco and alcohol, but an enhanced sales tax on vaping products, more than just the standard 6%. And so we’ve done we think a statistically significant and actually it is a statistically significant inspection of locations determine who’s charging what amount of tax and we expect to be able to publish a very detailed report that again I think will be scientifically verifiable to give assembly a real sense of…

Robert: My god.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: what we’re facing because the state of course has its financial issues but beyond that there’s a real intent and desire that the vaping industry pay the taxes it’s supposed to pay and the good players are doing

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: that, but the good players are hurt by the bad players who aren’t. And we think we’re going to be able to tell them what we’ll give them a picture, a story of just how big of an issue it might be as to whether or not the appropriate taxes are being paid, collected or so we’re going to put together this report. It’s just something we did on our own, not something that we were asked to do, but we started to see a real need here and…

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: we wanted to see if there was a problem or not, and our report will indicate that. Mr. Sure. That’s it for me.

Alan Silverstein: Does anybody have any new business?

Alan Silverstein: If not, I’d take a motion for adjournment.

Eric Morrissette: motion. All right.

Robert: Hi.

Alan Silverstein: Okay. Eric,…

Alan Silverstein: need a second. Hurricane. All those in favor signify by saying I.

Dourakine Rosarion: second. Mhm.

Dourakine Rosarion: Happy to second. Hi

Alan Silverstein: I. Okay. Eyes have it. Mr. Kelly, we look forward to seeing you next month.

Jeffrey Kelly -ATCC-: Sir, I have a lot to report next month, I hope. Thank you all. Bye-bye.

Alan Silverstein: Take care. Bye.

James Hock -State Police-: Thank you everybody.

Meeting ended after 00:33:50 👋

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