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The Vermont Cannabis Control Board set a rule Friday prohibiting retail marijuana stores within 500 feet walking distance from a school.
“I’m not sure if it matters if a cannabis establishment is through the woods, beyond the athletic field,” board member Julie Hulburd said.
Prevention Works!VT, a substance abuse prevention coalition, recommended a buffer zone of 1,000 feet between schools and a retail cannabis establishment. The rule adopted by the board will allow towns to reduce buffer zones or expand them to up to 1,000 feet.
Hulburd said small towns have communicated to the board that they have only a small downtown and that is where they would want to place a cannabis shop.
The board also wrestled with whether to require applicants for provisional licenses to have paid all taxes they owe, but ultimately decided to remove the requirement for previous cannabis operations.
The board is tasked with encouraging dealers and growers who have been illegally selling cannabis to come into a regulated market.
“It would get tricky where someone was convicted of trafficking and there is no record of tax payments,” board Chair James Pepper said.
Forcing applicants to reveal that they did not pay taxes on profits from illegal cannabis sales could place them at odds with federal law enforcement.
“I definitely don’t want to put people at risk federally, so maybe we don’t want to enforce tax compliance,” Hulburd said.
Pepper suggested requiring tax compliance on everything except past illegal sales of cannabis.
Board member Kyle Harris agreed with that proposal, pointing out that it would be difficult to get small growers to join the regulated market if they were forced to disclose that they had not paid taxes on past sales.
“We’ll never get the legacy market we want to capture if we enforce on the cultivation end,” Harris said.
Board members acknowledged the pressure they are under to put rules in place before the short growing season begins in spring.
A provisional license is the first step in getting approval to operate a cannabis business. Once applicants have been granted a provisional license, they can gather investors.
The public can still comment on the proposed rules, including distance from schools, over the coming weeks.
“None of this is etched in stone,” Pepper said.
Cannabis retail shops can open in Vermont starting in October 2022.
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