Good afternoon Chair postman members, Garrett Vollendroff. staff and guests lobbies are open recording has begun.
Thanks, Dustin. Good afternoon, everybody will convene the executive management team meeting for Wednesday, June 12 2024. Our first item up today is legislative update with our legislative director, Marc Webster.
Good afternoon, Chair Postman and members Garrent and Vollendroff. We are hard at work as you know, implementing the bills passed in 2024. And of course, we are still in the midst of rulemaking and implementation on big 2023 bills like social equity in the THC Bill, you will hear from Cassidy in the rules team on that. But we can circulate that implementation tracker to you all again, that was the tool developed by the incomparable Jessica Dang, that we developed last year. So we can kind of keep an eye on all the things on the plate, whether it's provisos or bills, where all those projects stand. It is not super detailed, as you know, for detailed rules, timelines, and whatnot, obviously talked to Cassidy. But it's a handy way to kind of get one clear view of all of those things and where they are. As always, we'd love some feedback on that, what to include maybe what to exclude a member Vollendroff, you had some very good suggestions last year that we included, we've got an internal team meeting to keep that work updated. And we can bring a live view of that information and input implementation tracker to a future end, as we've done a couple times in the past. It is definitely time to start thinking about our legislative agenda for 2025. It is coming up fast. And to date, I've got several ideas from licensing and E and E on what I would basically call RCW clean up, this is not sweeping policy changes, but removing archaic license types. Also making sure that MAST permitting rules apply across the board and we're not missing any license types for that. So I'm at this point, I've tried to pull all of those into one. But that's not a final decision. None of this is a final decision. We need to do some more work on getting that ready before it's ready for you. But just know that that's in the works. I've heard from folks wanting to look at product placement and where physically in a store. Alcoholic products can be placed, especially given the growth in crossover products, products that have a name and branding of a non alcohol thing. They will just talk to me about Ocean Spray alcoholic things, which is something I've never seen now. Yeah. So there are more and more of these on the market. And we're starting to see states try to restrict how stores display them or where they where they put them. We've also been talking in recent days about many bottles. I know you're aware of that, Mr. Chair, another area of interest to the public health communities as well as to the board. Now I've heard from members and some stakeholders that they think that certain statutory fixes to social equity could be needed. I think it's a little early for that, given that we're not completed with the rulemaking there. But I think we are you will be getting requests to have some sort of a trailer bill, some sort of a cleanup effort of one kind or another. I haven't seen anything, but I get the sense that that might be coming. And of course, there are many issues that we've seen in prior years that are almost certain to come back. Alcohol delivery is a big one. That cannabis signage, as you know, we had a big discussion about that that last year, dedicated cannabis account distribution. So that was last changed in 2022. I wouldn't be surprised if people took a look at that again. So and many, many others. So we'll try to get some discussions going with stakeholders. And you also we kind of can get out ahead of some of those perennial issues. And with that, like what else is on your mind, what problems do you see that we can address doesn't have to be right now in this meeting, but definitely want to be talking about that in the weeks and months to come.
I do want to just doors some thought going into product placement. Yeah, questions. And I think the first thing I think I asked this in one of those emails yesterday, but we need to figure out what we can do today without statutory authority. And that can help determine but yeah, the other the other piece of that is just the placement of alcohol with kids toys kids can be things like that It struck me is just such a low hanging fruit for retailers to fix on their own, but they have not. And so I'm pretty committed to trying to do something about that either through rule or statute. Remember, go and remember Vollendroff
You're, you're muted
on the mini bottle placement, and Becky and I talked about this a few weeks ago because I thought and I remember years ago, we discussed this it was an in depth conversation and I thought something was done back then where they could be on display and check out and when you walked into Door are things. But Becky reminded me that it was more. Cuz during that time, it was a lot of theft going on young people stealing the small bottles and on and on. But it wasn't something that was put in place, it was more of a recommendation. Is that what you were telling me, Becky, a suggestion that we put out to people to not have them. I thought something was done because folks, everybody took them away. They even put things behind the counter. And I forgot what all was going on back then when that occurred, and all of that stuff was removed. So I was surprised about a month or so ago when I started seeing them out front again as soon as you walk in the door visible. But I don't know what we did back then for sure, Becky, to see is that something we want to do? Again, even if it was only recommendations or suggestions and things on the mini bottles being right there at the front register at the front door. That's one thing and on the other. I'm hearing a lot of talk on the cannabis lounges and having cannabis lounge. And part of the problem is to do with air control. And on the call my meeting yesterday with policy and no research. I asked the question, how is it that cities like Tacoma can have a cigar lounge, certain cities have cigar lounge, and that has to have been some of the same concern air quality. But then some cities don't have it because of air quality. And things how was Tacoma? And I don't know if there's others I just know the one in Tacoma. How are they able to have cigar lounges?
Becky or Marty have an answer to them.
Yes, so we don't license the cigar lounges that it's just like a Hookah Lounge, that they're not allowed to serve alcohol in those venues. So I don't not sure how they get licensed that they might be a private club that brings and allow cigars to be smoked. So it depends on the license. But that's not something the air quality would be a concern of ours. Certainly.
Then Will and I had this discussion, I don't know a couple of months ago about that and thinking that you might see some of those consumption lounges on, on, on tribal land. And I do wonder if it's the one in Tacoma that you're speaking on is on Puyallup reservation land, which is out a lot of that, on that land.
It's, we google yesterday is called Smokey Point.
Yeah, well, we should look into that and answer that question. The other thing about we've had some people ask us licensees about the possibility that we've talked to some tribes about at least on a they've just done event-based not a permanent sort of social cannabis consuming thing. I think the smokes a big part. There's others too, though, you know, we don't, you can't. Right now, you know, you don't know how much you can smoke before it's safe to drive. And that's a big thing that I hear when this comes up. Most people---even though it gets abused horribly---know how much to drink, or how much to wait before they drink again. But remember, Vollendroff.
Just quickly on the product placement, and I've mentioned this to a couple people. So some of you will be hearing this as a repeat. But during last session, former representative Ruth kaigi came up to me and said, Hey, I understand you're on the liquor and cannabis board. I want to tell you a story. And so she went on to tell me this story about product placement in many bottles of alcohol, where a constituent came up to her and said, Hey, I'd like you to run a bill around prohibiting that from occurring. And she said she approached our legislative liaison at the time who assured her that she didn't need to run a bill because we would take care of that. And she said I learned my lesson right then and there never to do that again. So I hope we do do something about those mini bottles. And I sent well, some photos from a place down in Lewis County, that they're literally right at the end. There's like not just one thing of them, but an entire wall of them. Yeah, and second part of that is I and I just talked to Becky about this. I would really appreciate if we could talk about it from a couple of different perspectives. One is obviously theft to is is obviously access for underage individuals. But I'd also like to start talking about it from the perspective of individuals in recovery, and make that a part of our conversation. And a part of what we are looking out for upwards of 10% of the population suffers from substance use disorders. And one of the things that we know is that when you're in recovery, you avoid the alcohol aisle altogether. That's just a simple common sense way to make sure that you're not triggered by all of the advertisement and inundated with all this stuff. And it's virtually impossible anymore, because alcohol is all over the store. And so I'd like for us to, in our messaging, in our discussions about it be thinking about this 10% of the population that we also have an obligation to look out for, I can't tell you the number of people I know who have impulse bought alcohol, because it was placed in an area other than the alcohol, they would have gone into the store and gotten their gallon of milk and gone home. But because they had an extremely stressful day, because they were having a lot of anxiety because of a number of things based on placement. And we know they're all those items at checkout are all about opportunity and placement and impulse buying, that they cause relapse. So I just like that to be part of the conversation about why we're taking this on not just about youth, which of course is incredibly important, not just about shoplifting, which of course is incredibly important, but because of the nature of substance use disorders and people in recovery.
Yes, I would assure you we are in fact, we worked on a statement yesterday about this problem includes that very specifically, Jim. So that is and I've talked about this since the day she started, we've spent a lot of time on it. And that is always part of the conversation. And the reading I've done you can find industry journals that talk about the benefit of impulse presentation. They don't talk about going after people in recovery, but it is you know, they there's there's good they have good science on how many people go to the store thinking they'll buy booze, how many buy booze if they see it. And so one it is partly to put it at the cash register, but also partly to put it at places you're not expecting to see it. You put the you know, margarita mix and the tequila next to beach balls and buckets. And I sent a picture to Kristen the other day from my local Target. That was Barbie candy at the end of the aisle and the other end cap is by Kominek. And so it's Yeah. And if it's you know if it's true that we asked the industry at one point, to do this voluntarily. And this is what we have today, if that's what we did, then I'll dub, we really and I'm more worried about product placement in general than I am outline many bottles myself at this point. But we asked them to do something on product placement also. And we got crickets, nothing back from them. So we really need to do something about this.
And I think that's what's confusing to me. Because when you talk about Jim wishes, and having these conversations and everything you just bought up, that was the conversation. We had the conversation, we had a lot of conversation around the mini bottles placement, and it was when we were having back if you can recall where we used to have our meetings, and it was that we bought the alcohol industry together. And all of them that's part of that industry. They're the ones that actually bought it to us. It was the industry that bought it to us. And it was a lot of conversation, all of this stuff we're talking about and that you bought up now, Jim, it was some deep conversation. And for the life of me, I can't remember what happened. But something happened. And they stop doing it. They went away. They put them behind the register. They locked them up. I don't know what we did, but it wasn't because of the alcohol. I forget what we used to call ourselves, our groups and stuff that we get them involved in it. That group. Yes, Becky?
So you're right. It was alcohol advisory group. And right. So this happened after 1183. So when 1183 happened, and the state stopped selling alcohol. What happened was that it went into all these grocery stores. They started putting alcohol at the front. And what they saw was this huge rise in what was being stolen out of the stores. And so during that alcohol advisory group meeting and one of the things that we discussed was where they could Did you know that we would put something out and ask for voluntary compliance, recommend that they lock these products up? And they did just that. I mean that most of the, you know that that most of the stores pulled it out locked that they certainly have room because we see them locking up all kinds of other things. Now, behind the counter, whether it's you know that toothpaste or deodorant? Yeah, laundry, so I you know that they have the space for it. And you're also right, David, we just recently sent out back this past October, I believe, a request to to as far as product placement of the small mini bottles, and we haven't seen changes or a shift.
Can somebody find me something from that? Conversation years ago, it was there ever anything memorialized on a piece of paper, anything because this the first time hearing of it. And when we wrote, you know, I wrote a letter to the industry two years ago, almost. And I had no idea but it changes my perception a little bit that we've already tried the voluntary route now twice a couple of years ago and two years ago. And I think it's time we really need to look at what we can do by rule, if not by statute. Director wax.
Yeah.
When we did it, it worked. When we did do it. It worked. But short, short. Yeah, Becky, but you're right. David, the it was when we had the alcohol advisory group. And we bought all of the various organizations together. And they reached out to their cup, folks, right. So that was thority.
They don't have any authority to enforce. And clearly in this case, they gave it up if they were doing it. Timson, there was a really good bill that passed in Michigan recently. And that bill two came from the industry. I think the industry around the country is seeing that this is changing. We've seen builds in Minnesota, Michigan, Virginia, and I don't want us to be last Dr. Wax,
I would just say that this is something that when enforcement is out working with our retail locations, this is the advice they give them. And there are large chain stores and small stores that comply with that advice and take that advice. Safeway is a great example. You can go in and see the physical remodels and restructure of their sales, where they they're locking up a drama at some outs of their liquor. We're certainly working with other large changes, or one in particular right now that will say, oh, good advice. Thank you move it. And then it will come back. I think this is a situation where the industry is sandwiched between the things that we're talking about those social responsibilities and pressure to from marketers and the people selling the product that wants it to be front and center. Right? Yeah, yes. But this is something that we advise on enforcement pretty regularly, and we're doing so at three major locations right now.
Again, if you look at what the industry is writing for their own appetite on these things, you know, alcohol sales are down in the United States, they're losing younger people and women, and they're looking for ways to recapture the market. And this is touted as one of the ways through there's people out there that say, Hey, I can help you maximize impulse sales. We don't need to be helping that. Okay. Thank you, Mark.
Oh, I'm sorry. Quickly, Mark. One other thing. And we, we've talked to Rep. Davis about this, but I anticipate the high THC concentration products will come up in some fashion. She just lost her LA. And so she's asked that there, she's rehiring. And as soon as they rehired, she rehired her LA. She does want to have a conversation. And you were in that meeting we had with Kristen the other day with the prevention folks. And so I think that there's some appetite to continue that conversation as well. So just keeping that on the radar.
Try to loop her into those conversations, should she be invited?
Okay, we'll move to licensing and turn it back over to you Becky.
Okay, here we go. So a couple of licensing updates. I just wanted to highlight for the board that we have a lot happening in licensing right now a lot of changes going on. I think that as you can see here that that we're we have a current recruitment, that we're in the process of hiring a new licensing specialist supervisor in our liquor unit. The supervisor that is currently in that role has moved over to help with systems modernization project that because that project is so important that we have dedicated some of our best staff, to making sure that we get the best product in the end. So that you know that the supervisor has training, he has experience, he knows our licensing system. So I think he'll be a great addition. But of course, that means we you know that that change is about to happen for licensing again. And then I've spoken a lot about this lately, but as of Friday, this Friday, Heidi Braley, our licensing manager on the liquor side will be retiring after 33 years working just for the liquor and cannabis board. That is, you know, it's amazing. It's amazing that she's has stayed in licensing she's worked in, you know, that, that on the liquor side the whole time. So she takes her with her all of this experience, on the Mi W side, on you know, that when it comes to wineries and breweries and, and so we've been training our staff, you know, throughout this time and making sure that we're prepared as prepared as we can be. We've just finished second interviews. So I'm hoping that that my deputy will have a decision, hopefully by the end of the week, and who's going to be filling that that position. And then we're also that in the middle of hiring for an intern while we're interviewing for a program specialist five, that for the social equity manager. As you know, Sarah Davis has been in the role for the past few years since since we started. Actually, since that position became available, she has accepted a promotion, I think it's exciting for her to to be able to promote, but she's done such a wonderful job in that. In social equity. I'm also sad to have her move, move on, but I'm glad she's staying in licensing and she's still going to be helping us with social equity as well. And then we're, of course, in the middle of, you know that that as these positions open up and change, that we you know that the lowest level positions in our division are always customer service positions. And so we always fluctuate and having openings in those areas. And then these are the employees that we've hired in the last couple of months in the last 60 days, that to managers, brand new managers to our agency, but fantastic leaders, one coming from the Department of Licensing, you know that he's taken over customer service, new eyes, you know that that new energy, we're excited to have Eugene join us. And then for our other manager, it's Deseret Monroe, she also comes with a lot of state service and on the legislative slide on the rule side, and she is our new oh my gosh, what is she she is our policy and education manager. And then I mentioned Sarah as well. So I just wanted to to let you know about those folks. And then I wanted to talk a bit about the cannabis infused edible labels submissions, because I've heard a lot about this since in the last week or so. And so I want to just bring some realities to sometimes what we hear and what we experienced some what different. So what we have here is we've in blue is the email submissions. So in the month of January, we received 22 emails out of 22 emails. There, they contained 94 labels, so only, you only see 22. But there's actually 94 labels within those 22 emails. That next you see the 22 labels out of 94 and January were required no revision and 72 required revision, that means something within that label needed to be redone. And then the next shows the number of labels approved in January was 57, and they took 17 days to approve. Susan has 14 days to review a label when it's received, and they're reviewed in the order that they're received. Revisions are treated in the same way. So if somebody has to do a revision, they have to start over so they have to resubmit their their application and or their revised submission. And Susan again, takes them in the order that they're received. I think that what we've seen in the last in the month of May, with the passing of Senate House for Bill 1453 with the temporary exercise tax exemption option was a we started to receive a lot more labels that in May, it was just you can see that the amount of labels went up. It also, we also had an unexpected leave for Susan. So Susan was out of the office not on vacation as everybody's thought and said, Oh, this lady's out on vacation, she was out on an emergency leave. And so that was for three weeks. And during her absence, we experienced, again, a high level of submissions, that, that a lot of revisions that needed hap to happen. And what we found was that we we added staff to be able to review those submissions, because they were new to reviewing it took a lot of took a longer time. And so we found that you know, where we had some need to make some changes. So where we also find some need to make some changes in set. Right now we're working on our strategic plan. And what I'll tell you is that we are in the middle of making some videos, and some PowerPoint presentations about submitting correct labels. We clearly need to do it. We're starting the work in July. The cool thing about this, though, is that with the new LCB website, and I think Brian will talk a bit about that, we'll be able to embed those videos on our website. So it's something that the public can go in, or licensees can go in and watch over and over again. Because again, I think that somewhere with these submissions having to be resubmitted and resubmitted, we're missing what, what, where people are struggling. And this way, we'll know we'll have some ability to see how many people are hitting that website, as well and where we need to make some changes. And we're going to be reaching out to the industry once we make those videos to see what's you know, that that does, you know, does this hit the point of, of helping, we want to make sure that we're you know that we that this is efficient for them, it's efficient for us, but really, the more efficient they are and submitting the labels correctly, the better it is for us. And we're hopefully looking at adding some resources in this area to this is a one person shop and cannabis labels is only one piece of what she does. So I just wanted to share that I knew that there had been some questions out there and wanted just to address those as far as how long, how much time it's actually taking. And then last slide here is around our neck.
Can I make a quick show before we move on Becky quick, quickly wanted to support the idea of additional staff helping with that particular body of work, and expanding it potentially to other products that we regulate. The other thing is to throw out there and I know you and I've had this discussion, but just to get a broader audience to the idea. When Susan asked folks in in CSLA or not, no in camera sorry about labeling and that kind of stuff, we found out that other states charge for submission. So for every time you want to submit a label, you're charged for that and that it reduced potentially the back and forth, you know nitpicky kind of stuff because people were paying for this. And to me, that's something I think we should consider it's a legitimate body of work that we do. It's a transaction that takes time and effort. So just throwing out there that I think we should consider charging for some of these labels, particularly on the cannabis side.
And we are doing a lot of to to that we want you I want the board to know that we are doing a lot of work right now working with with Sarah okey, and her research focuses well, that we want to take a look at what is the best way to review our products, not just not just cannabis, but liquor as well. Is there a point that a team needs to review it is there's a few people and then it moves over to a team when there's there's too many questions back and forth about a label and have that team set up with folks from you know, throughout our agency not just licensing not just enforcement, but some folks that have a kind of a new lens and seeing something different so both Sarah okie and and Sarah Davis and Susan have been doing some research on what other states are doing as well. So we want to be able to bring that back and share with the board and with with the director about what we're what our recommendations would be moving forward.
Right. The other thing that I want to say about it's not just about and I have not gotten any complaints about the amount of time it takes or anybody being away, but if If and, you know, Becky, you and I've talked about this issue since I got here, but if we're going to be spending some time thinking about this process, we should also spend some time talking about the policy behind it. And make sure that we all know what it is, you know, why we're doing what we do. And make sure that the board who asked to, you know rule on the appeals understands the policy behind it, because it may also be time to reconsider some of what's been in place on the cannabis side for 10 years, as we've you know, adjusted other things, is it all still necessary? And are we you know, being consistent between concerns around, you know, alcohol and cannabis and mixing and those sorts of things. So I'm glad that conversation is taking place. But let's also make sure that we're talking about the policy behind it, not just the process.
Yep, absolutely. And, and I, you know, that that I know that there's a meeting on Friday, about, about a lot of placement of products of alcohol, that that Kristin is meeting are heading up, and the research folks and the rules, folks and licensing, and I believe enforcement will all be part of those conversations as well. So I you know, that back to what we had shared with me earlier, we we certainly need to be asking the question of who needs to be involved in these conversations, who needs to be in the know, and and you're right, I think that we'd like to see the rules, stronger in order to help drive some of this process. And then I also will mention, as part of this is that, that I'm later on this week, I'm out of state, but we're going to be talking about that crossover product is something that is happening on the national level, it's conversations that folks are having in all a lot of other states. So we will be talking about crossover, broke beverages, marketing, trade practice, concerns from both the regulators and the industry. So I think that that what we learned in there several of us attending, but what we learned from that conversation, I think will certainly bring back to, to share with everyone. Right. And then one last slide I do just want to mention is that that the small business liaison to have a small business liaison at our agency that sits in licensing, and my team is very involved. And it's because of that we do want to understand the barriers when it comes to small business and operating a small business. So we're we have a staff that's attending with a lot of other small a lot of other agencies to talk to small businesses in the outcome on the 27th. But again, it's it's a lot of planning goes on. We do this with just talking to small businesses, but this is all state agencies coming together to have conversations as well. And I think that's it for me. Thank you.
Good. Thank you, Becky. Okay. We'll move to an enforcement education update with Director Wax.
Good afternoon. Thanks so much for the opportunity to present data and take questions. Thank you, Dustin. Of course, my mic is on. Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to present data and ask question. Thanks, Dustin, for driving slides. First, just for a frame of reference, obviously, I put up a number of licenses that we manage licensee locations. And I like to harass our liquor team a little bit when we talk about the percentage of cannabis locations that our staff has visited for the year and then ask liquor, why haven't you been to 70. And they look at me with disdain much of the time, but it's just gives me a good frame of reference when we start out. So I like to share the same with you. But we'll start by talking about complaints. And you can see on the slide that complaints and liquor stayed pretty consistent for the month of May. And then one of the things that I know that the board of directors office is interested in is internally generated complaints. And so when we look at those cannabis complaints, one of the things that to note or that I noted in the data was 89% of our cannabis complaints this month were internally generated, and many of those are through the lens that we're looking at our traceability data now with alerts. So going through and checking on those alerts and many of them as you'll see, when we get further into the data. We're not substantiated, for example, producers who are currently not growing, that would throw a flag and traceability because it would say they're not entering info in the system. And then so we would go check on that. See that it's because there's no info to enter and move along. So let's Some of the numbers that you'll see this time and then also you see that the consultants, when we get complaints that are easily we can see that they can be resolved by education and wouldn't result in enforcement those go right to the consultants. So that's why you're seeing that increase. Go ahead.
Can I ask you a question on the last thing you just said? On the alert. So right, we now do have alerts working in CCRS.
Yes, we do have them. And I can send you some numbers or even maybe next time present on some numbers and what we're seeing.
That's great.
Yeah, absolutely. And then 68% of those tobacco vape complaints were internally generated as well, just based on the checks that we're doing there. Moving on to look at the number of complaints we see that are related to public safety. You see that that stays pretty consistent 55%. We do have more of a higher public safety number this month, related to those traceability complaints, because that's connected to diversion, and so that falls into the public safety category as well. Next slide, looking specifically at education data, and violations. You can see there was a 14% increase in education contacts from 22 to 23 are in our use of NTCs continues to increase and will do so as long as we have those compliance consultants out there documenting their education. And then let's see, it looks like pretty consistent numbers across the board and we are on target and TCS again are higher but on target to be the same as this year as we were last year. We look specifically at licensee education total number of contacts thus far for the second quarter of 24 is up over 4600 Which is great that we're getting out there and educating our licensees. And when we look at that contact breakdown specifically by industry and by year just to get a good idea of who's doing how much of that education next slide in liquor 6800 contacts cannabis 913. And then consultants we pull out even further so that you can see the difference that our officers are still out there doing education. The consultants are also doing almost 3000 Education contexts just this year so far. Great numbers, great opportunity for us to as we talk about assisting our licensees with compliance. For the month of May alone, the division conducted 470 hours of education. So that is very impressive. Next slide on start looking at May education topics. This is fairly consistent with what we see each month you can see that those regulatory topics helping licensees with compliance. And then of course, always out there educating about the importance of youth access and those public safety topics, and then helping out with licensing and permits and then new licensee support. That those are the top five topics that are taking up our time and that our licensees are asking questions about when we look at the topics for NTCs or notice to correct the top five topics engaging in non retail conditional sales. You'll notice that this is a new one this and it came to the top we had some complaints about this specifically about some producers processors and the prices at which they were offering things to their retail clients. And so this turned into a very specific investigation looking into those and it just made our top five this month because it involves so many different entities. Um, and then the typical non compliance with record keeping general advertising failure to use traceability or maintain the required surveillance system very appropriate topics for notice to correct and helping licensees get on track. When we start looking at the violation breakdown for 2024 You'll see liquor there warnings and a V NS and then tobacco and vapor and then over in cannabis warnings ABMS and anti seize. We had 47 warnings in the month of May and then one alien. So seeing how staff are using those different tools for the right topics. When we look at Avians and what we use those Avians for in the month of May you can see that youth access issue being our priority and then of course you see sailor service to apparently intoxicated persons and caught conduct violations, showing up with larger numbers than they usually do for a month. And I thought this, we thought this was interesting and went to look and see if it was one particular region or how this is. And this is across the state in several different regions. And so I complimented our captains on what this looks like, to me as consistency. And everyone is talking about the same things, looking at public safety and enforcing things consistently across the state. Instead of sometimes what we would see is one region focusing on one issue and another. So this is a data reflection of our enforcement teams doing things right.
what would be included in conduct? Well, is that like employee drinking, or selling?
After hours service, like. Yeah, those types of things. When we look at our warning topics, for me, the things that were out there, taking a little bit more seriously not quite to the avian lab level, you can see that the tobacco team out there doing their MSA agreement checks, masked violations, failure to use and maintain traceability, non compliance with record keeping, and then tax reports. So you're seeing data very consistent across the board that we are using warnings, notice to correct an education, until it's clear that it's either a public safety violation or more serious efforts need to be made. Looking at Alternative Dispute Resolutions, you can see that we still have low numbers in places where compromises are not reached, or it is going forward to a formal hearing. In the liquor unit. Same is true for cannabis, we had to in March move forward to formal hearing, but not in April or May and then the same as not reaching a compromise, one in March and none in April or May. So we're still being successful at resolving situations at the lowest level possible. Even in that regard. I have to give you a little warning here, you're not going to like this data. But I do want to talk about how we get here. So I want to I'll share a quick story. When I saw this data for the first time we talked about it, ask lots of questions. And then apparently we moved on and presented about the cannabis compliance data and the delivery complete. And I completely missed it, I had to rewind, because I was still my brain was still so focused on this data. So let's talk about why we're here. When we look at this number 240 compliance checks were conducted, again, to say out loud, that's our officers work doing those compliance checks, the compliance rate is our licensees responsibility and ensuring that we're not selling to you. So last year, mid year, July, we made a change. We were not randomly assigning compliance checks. And so officers were selecting areas where they would go and sometimes it was very popular areas, areas, we were hearing about areas close to freeways and main traffic locations, those kinds of types of things. And so we had locations that weren't getting checks and types of locations that weren't getting checks. And so what's happened is we've been doing that for almost a year. And we're to the point where 64% of those checks that were conducted are for on premise locations. So locations that don't sell alcohol as frequently and don't get compliance checks as frequently or maybe haven't in years had a compliance check. So when we start looking at why this number is so low, that is a contributor. The other thing that this helps us see is that when we're talking about how else can we impact youth access, it's really important to look at those on premise locations as well. So this was shocking for all of us. I knew it would be a show stealer here today.
When was the last time we had such a low compliance rate for liquor?
Um, I will tell you that Mark Seaford who does our data analysis said that he has 13 years of data and hasn't seen it this low
so moving on, although I suspect.
Wait a minute, sorry. I was looking I was looking for something that I can't find right now. And I had sent it to Sarah okie and I'll send it to you, Director wax. I found a gentleman who has done a lot of work or nationally around sales to minors. And so I was talking to him recently and I introduced him to Sarah so that they can have some conversation. And when I shared with him our compliance rates. He was shocked at 80% and say And that's too low 80% is shockingly low. And so when I see these numbers, I mean, these are, we should be, I think very alarmed. And I think we should I don't know come up with the specific actionable, trackable plan of how we're going to reverse these. But I do have, yes, significant concern about these. And I hope I mean, yeah, I don't know. I don't know what the answer is. But I'm hoping to hear from others. What suggestions you might have are, what is the plan to reverse these trends? And what do people think about 80% Not being acceptable. And that's our highest in the five, six months that we have in front of us.
I would just say, so everyone else knows, I know, you know, this board member Vollendroff. But we are meeting with our public health partners and our public health liaison and our partners at doh to talk about the other things I know our communications director has been in on some of those meetings to talk about other things we can do to impact youth access in the state of Washington. And it's something that I'm excited that you forwarded some information about a contact to Sarah okie, it's a topic that I have selected for my own dissertation. So it's been very interesting researching the other things that have impact. But I think it needs to be a priority for us and for the state of Washington. And that's one of the reasons why we made the two changes we made last year, if you remember, one was doing randomly assigned checks, and the other one was pausing the rechecks. So we could assign more resources to doing more checks at unique locations for which we've been successful, obviously, because we're getting to those off on premise locations.
And so if we were able to do as many rejects, as we were doing before, and all these I'm sure the rate would be even worse, because the rechecks do find repeat violations.
They do.
Of course
not every time
but it's not unusual. Certainly
yeah.
Do we have a benchmark? Or is there a national benchmark that we should be targeting towards? Well, why is it like we have a line across here across this slide. This is here's our target. And so every month seen how what's that variance between actual and target?
I certainly am willing to suggest something we have had this conversation before. And I have said that I have a hard time recommending that our target should be anything but 100%. Because I like that answer. One sale to use. It's too many sales. Yeah. I'm not willing to say or recommend that we say any number of us that access sales is acceptable.
We, you know, the board members could could tell me if they remember differently, but we've never looked at a sale to youth where seemed a totally unavoidable accident, right. Like there was always a point in there where it could have been prevented by just careful work. It's never out of the country, you know, at least again, what we've seen, maybe they go elsewhere, but from what the board has seen, never seen one where the we're not talking about fake IDs, right? Because those are people use real IDs. You know?
Yeah, I would say that. One of the things we will hear from licensees and we do hear from licensees is that sometimes they feel like they've done everything they can in buying the systems and training their employees. And so in that regard, they feel like it's out of their control because the employee has made the error, but we're all dealing with humans, so.
I'm looking forward to reading your dissertation.
My current draft is two weeks late. So my teacher too. I'm ready to move on to the next slide whenever you guys are. We'll talk about delivery curbside pickup compliance. Obviously, we were focusing on some of those on premise liquor checks. And so we didn't do any checks in this month for curbside so there is no rate as opposed to 0% which is what that slide reflects. And then when we look at the Cannabis compliance for youth access, we are going to celebrate success where it's due and this is this is an acceptable number. This is an acceptable compliance right in my book at 100%. So good job to the cannabis industry, and tobacco and vapor compliance for youth accesses at 87%. In one of the checks and balances We use for this as this is our staff across the state our LCB Eleos. We also have a partnership with with our FDA team, and they do checks as well. And their compliance rate was 88% this month. So we always make sure that that's pretty comparable. There's no reason why it shouldn't be an
interesting that, you know, even with a wide variation, and how many are visited, that percentage is fairly consistent here, as opposed to what we saw with liquor.
Yeah, you'll see the fewer numbers obviously, like with any data, the fewer numbers we do, the more impact one failure will have. But yeah, it's it's fairly consistent when we look at premise checks, and this is just our staff getting out there. And this is where I give the liquor team a little bit of undeserved grief, because cannabis has 77% of our locations out there visited, right they have compliance consultants making those visits officers making those visits. And so a liquor has made 33% of those visits, which is yeoman's work, it's great work, and they're out there seeing a number of people. So you can see that we are out there, and we are visiting our licensees and supporting them and supporting public safety. We track ID checks because we believe that it's another way to impact youth access. It's just another way that when we're out there, and we see youthful appearing persons, we're saying, Hey, let me see your ID. And hopefully that's what our licensee employees are doing as well. So we're just supporting them. When you look at the work production by our cry team, criminal history, records information, they do work for most of the divisions in our agency, definitely HR for hiring, we do backgrounds for licensing, you can see that they're keeping very busy with cannabis renewals, and also the licensing background checks. We created this slide to look at our top advertising requests for the month of May. I'm sorry, top examiner requests. I missed a slide on my own stack, sorry. And so you can see that they're working closely with our officers and licensees and then also supporting the CCRS activity and helping the research team out working with consultants. They're just doing a great amount of work across the division and even supporting other divisions in the agency. So this team is really working out well, where they're currently placed. The top advertising requests we've heard a lot about this, so I just thought I'd share general ads for cannabis outdoor ads for cannabis sweepstakes for liquor that we really couldn't. I asked why so many in that there was really no event or no reason. It just happened to be a general increase for the month. And then also looking like we talked about at that FDA team and additional number of inspections that's happening with our licensees still, but on behalf of the FDA 676 of them so far this quarter, and then that consistent compliance rate of 88%. Are there checks. We can committed to being transparent about an IA is internal affairs. This is not complaints on licensees, but complaints on our staff. We did have one case resolved in May and it was unfounded. And then talking about hiring recruiting, which is a big topic, we still hold at 26 vacancies we've hired for Elio ones in the month of May we still have seven folks in background 20% vacancy rate for Eleos, 14% vacancy rate when we include everyone, not just Eleos. And we had one lieutenant mo leap promoted. That's exciting. For those of you that know most history, she started in the director's office as an admin support for the director. And then one Captain promotion Jacob Garnett. So if you have the opportunity to reach out to them and say congratulations, that is well deserved. We are doing recruitment events in June, we had you should see some buses and one of our harder areas to recruit in is up north in King County. So you should see some buses driving around with some LCD pictures. I think the officers that agreed to take those pictures would have liked to know where all we were going to use it beforehand. But now that we have the pictures, and then also very exciting. We have eight people in the Academy right now. So director Lukela and I are attending a graduation at the end of the month. So we'll see some folks graduate and then we have four more coming over the next couple of months and we do have oh I can't remember the number whether it's four or seven very different numbers, but we have five people waiting to go to the academy. Do I picked up, we have some people waiting to go to the academy. Yeah, and of course, always working with somewhere between four and seven, I should have written that down. And then we have, of course, as always work keeping up on our training hours. As you know, we're doing our LGBTQ plus training out of the academy certification. And that's all going very well. So I believe, Oh, my updates and notable partnerships, I will just share, we've been doing lots of work with our public health liaison, which is great because it's good for enforcement and public health to talk about things and hear how things impact in the public health industry. And that's been very positive. Captain Dixon did a presentation for the State Patrol titled partnering with LCB. To reduce problems from licensed licensed businesses. One of our strategic goals is to educate our general enforcement partners about how we can work together and help them with things they're dealing with. We're participating in Target Zero, we worked with egg on an unauthorized pesticide investigation, working with licensing to discuss food trucks at brewery premises, and then also lots of partnership and onboarding cooperations. We find things go a lot better when licensing and enforcement started out knowing each other's jobs at the beginning. So that's growth and development that we've made in those two divisions. So any questions?
Did we have a rules petition on? Alcohol it Food Trust?
Yes.
That we rejected?
Yes.
Okay. Just checking.
Yeah.
So somebody will explain that to me, because it says here that you have us workable solution?
Well, what the discussion that we're having and the concern from licensees is, can we have the food truck inside of our licensed premise? And so there's discussion about that being a separate business on in a licensed premise. And so we just talked about those food, we want food where they're serving alcohol, for sure. Yeah. So having those food trucks available in close to outside of the service area, as opposed to inside of the service area.
And given them what petition was was still alcohol sales in a food truck. This is tied to food truck inside the premises
or have them stay outside the license from us, but be accessible for food.
Great, good. Thank you. Okay, thanks. We'll move to communications and director Brian Smith.
We can share postman, and also to members, Garrett and Vollendroff. Just as we always do, we start off with the media, the media is just it's a steady trickle, I guess coming in, we'll get one or two every day working on typically, localized things. Nothing, I don't see anything trending at the moment. One of those though, is pertinent to this conversation is what triple has been alluded to before, which is about product placement. We put together a statement that I released to that reporter today, and that involved eyes with most of the people on this table right here. And our public health education liaison was very helpful, also been working with her Shandra, she's been great. So moving on, I also did work basically led the planning for the CANNRA. CANNRA wanted to branch out and have some engagement with the media there. They don't want to go all in, but they want to go a little bit. And I helped them with a small team, but lead that small team in developing a plan for them to be able to engage media in advance of the Minnesota meeting. And I'm sure you'll hear, we'll talk about how that meeting went. But I invited some national players did attend and did do questions, as well as some select state media from around the country. So I think everyone met the needs of what they were looking for. And that happened and was out the door. So glad to have that behind us. You've heard me say, you know, for a while now that it's the 24 hours a year of technology for my team, not gonna be a broken record that we have some interesting things that are that are inside because I want you guys to know that. That's where my team is trying to focus all always have to do what I do. But when we're not doing other things, we're working on what we need to do for the website and the SharePoint. Chapter Three is the our vendor, a small firm out of San Francisco, great team of professionals, and they're really helping us through and then we're using a number of tools to develop, develop the structure of what that website is going to look like. And so it's based on like personas, that's a known way of being able to structure a website who comes to our website, and how do they use it. And we know that our website is, you know, pretty transactional people come here for a banquet permit. They come here to learn about mass trade and all that stuff. You know, we've had success with our social equity page, people don't really come to our page just to kind of poke around and kill time, right? They come here for a purpose. And so we want to be able to build a website that's going to be able to hit those users and they can find what they want quickly and easily. And also some of the structure of how we put together and package our stuff. Like for example, she has us breaking it down into cannabis on the licensing side cannabis like cannabis, alcohol and tobacco vapor kind of stuff, which I think is actually going to work in our favor going forward. So more to come on this over time. But it's been great to work with this good this vendors been great. So far, I've been really happy we work with them every week. And we plan to roll out the go live, September 16. So here we are in mid June, I mean, this thing's rolling along. And we're gonna get there. And there's a lot to go through there. And simultaneously, you know that we're also working on transitioning our current intranet to SharePoint Online, we're doing that piece by piece, the first section is going to roll out from basically like a homepage. It's called the communications page. But it's really like a homepage, first thing you see when you bring up the browser. And that should go live right around the first of August. So that's the homepage at CIT page. And it's also the Service Desk page. And this one's just a little different, because we're learning as we go, it is learning we're learning. We don't have answers to every question we have and have to go figure those out. It is doing a great job of being all that trying to dog it with us, but a different experience. But we're gonna get there and it'll be good. So moving on just a couple of last things just kind of wrap that up. In addition to doing my team on the strategic plan, Julie sat in on the subgroup of the planning thing to help iron out some of those questions. She did all that in addition to what she was doing on the SMP project. And in addition to rolling out the policy and the plan for the Governor's Executive Order in plain language and stuff. So Julie's doing a bang up job on all that stuff. And she's always a great and great volunteer. She's always willing to do whatever she can to fill up for time. And then Brad, did the design work for the or the, the strategic plan itself. So of course, he always does a great job to go and get looks good. So that's, you know, it's the key stuff. That's the stuff we're working on. Right around. But you know that when we're not free and doing things that you know about, we're working on website stuff and the intranet. So are there any questions about that?
And SMP, your work is somebody who spends a little time Yep, no questions. Okay. Agency, General Agency.
Thank you, Chair, postman. Thank you, Chairman
for sure. Tony. Yes.
Thank you, Chair, postman, and members Vollendroff and Garrett. Last week, Rachel Swaner and I attended the WACA conference in Walla Walla. I spoke generally about the state of the agency. And we both answered a lot of questions about the medical cannabis tax exemption. We sat on a panel with Shannon Ingles, think that's her last name from someone's going to correct me if I'm wrong from Department of Health, she did an excellent job talking about all the wax. And she was a great partner. We I believe we answered a lot of WACA's questions. We spent most of the day with them answering various questions. That is one area where questions came up about packaging and labeling. And so I'm really glad that director Smith gave us that presentation today, and explained the timeframes for packaging and labeling, because there was some confusion about how long LCB takes and doing packaging and labeling. Because of the back and forth, that often happens. And so it's not that a request is sitting here for a long time, it's often that it has to go back and forth. And so the sum total of time may be longer, but it's because there's back and forth. So I really appreciate director Smith putting together that slide and showing us that today. So we can see the real data for that. We had a successful Town Hall on Monday where all of the directors presented information. And I was very excited that everyone shared pertinent information. I think it was great for all of our staff to see that we had over 300 And oh, I'm sorry, over 238 attendees. I don't know exactly how many but I know when I looked up at the tally, we had at least that many, so I was very happy with with that turnout. Regarding the SMP update. We executed our second amended contract with Accenture and we are currently on schedule with SMP but It is a very, very tight schedule, we have noticed a little bit of slippage. But we are meeting with the project managers every week to make sure small slippage doesn't affect the overall schedule. But we really have to stay on that because a few things slipping can quickly turn into more. And so that's why I'm George Williams, and I meet with them every week. We also include some of the Accenture, Accenture executives in those discussions. I had a great meeting this morning, regarding the decision package for phase three and four, we had members of our EA team there along with it. And we discussed what we need for that decision package. And we came to a good agreement about what's inside scope for phase three and four, what what will be part of Phase Three and what will be part of Phase four, there's a lot of interaction between the board adjudication staff and the end notebook and, and vice versa. And so we have to be clear about where we're drawing the line for Phase Three development and work and where phase four development and work Pinkston takes over. And they really kind of blend if you're not clear. But for to have proper governance with our project, we need to have a line drawn. And it's very important that we don't have scope creep. Otherwise, we can't stay within schedule, and we can't stay within budget, and follow all of our requirements. So that was a great discussion this morning. And I was very happy that everyone's working together to find a place where we can draw that line that makes sense, while still trying our best to meet everyone's needs with phase three. And also on decision packages. Rachel SWANER and Dr. Lukela. And I will be meeting to look at the overall agency decision packages. The management staff had a chance to vote on what they think about all the requests that came through. And we're going to look at those voting results and figure out what we should ultimately put forward for our decision packages. Those decision packages include director Smith's request for additional staff for language play label, and packaging. So that is among the discussion. So yes. So we are considering that, um, there's a lot of very valid requests in there. And so it's going to be tough to make the decision about what we should put forward. I believe I've spoken about this before, but just to let you know, we're still proceeding with our strategic portfolio management. Mallory Hays is leading that work, we are building the fundamental building blocks for that that's that's our decision making framework governance model and prioritization process. So that management team can coordinate and assess project work across the agency. And we're just about ready to do some cases, run some cases through there and see how it works. And that's moving along. And I think it'll be a great tool for us. And as member Vollendroff knows, we're working on the focus groups. We're getting people signed up, Jessica dang and Jim Weatherly are working with member Vollendroff. On getting those I all have almost all of the dates have been arranged. I believe there's one that needed to be rescheduled. But we're encouraging staff to sign up for those early on, there were less staff signed up than there had been for last year. So we're trying to make sure we get the message out. We're trying to monitor that to see if, you know perhaps every year is not going to work. But we'll just see, you know, if we get enough people participating in that focus group. So I think it's it's a great idea, and I hope we get enough people to participate. And the last thing I see, the last thing I have is that we will be recruiting for a project manager who will work out of the director's office, to help with the traceability project and with other agency wide projects. And eventually, hopefully, we will be able to support a very small project management office out of the directors division. That is our hope, if we can muster up the resources or the FTE to do that. But the focus would be on agency wide projects and have coordination on on making sure that we have the right amount of resources, the right amount of bandwidth, the right amount of, of money, of course and our time Timing everything correctly. And so looking at this from an agency perspective and having the project management skills to lead us through successfully.
Questions for Tony, let's say on budget at some point, I think we'll bring that to the board. So the board will be briefed on what's in there and would be good for them to know sort of maybe even what didn't make it, so they can look at that. Okay. And now we will turn to will Kela.
Sure
and I'll give you the mic
good afternoon. Just a few brief highlights for me. And thus far in June, the agency held an LCB administrative support retreat, which was attended by the majority administrative support professionals. It was an opportunity for administrative support staff to collaborate, engage in team building and participate in professional development training. All of this is going to support the consistency and efficiency throughout the agency. heard nothing but great things about it, thanks to all the directors, for their support, and for all the staff that participated attended the state of black Tacoma meeting. And it was very insightful, very insightful for everyone that was able to attend that. Brian talked about the camera meeting, the external stakeholders meeting, I got to sit on a panel at the end of the first day talking about regulator insights, and reflections, the topics of the camera meeting included interstate commerce, rescheduling, high concentration THC equity, cannabinoid hemp markets, data, you name it, it became part of everything. And so it was an opportunity for all the regulators throughout the states to talk about similarities, differences, how to move forward, lots of great conversations. And we'll be able to share some more with the board as time goes on as we start to unpack some of this. And let's see, Tony mentioned the town hall. I actually enjoy the town halls, it's the opportunity for all of the agency to hear what's going on in the various divisions and to ask questions, real time and get answers. So that's kind of what's going on right now. And, like a few other staff, headed to the NCSLMA conference here next week.
Right. The questions for this? I had one leftover question either for Director wax and or director Brian Smith. Director X, we talked briefly about this, maybe a month ago. Communications to cannabis growers at the beginning of the season about reminder on canopy measurement. Did we do something like that? Could we still is it too late? All right. Can't remember. Yeah.
In the newsletter. But we can finish this circle back with you.
Yeah, that's great. Okay. Good. I also just want to say I used the new IT portal. Yesterday. It's amazing. It's great. So thanks to George Williams and his team. And, you know, I've only been here. Yeah, we'll be able to get much more requests to you, right. Three and a half years, I never knew who to call. So it No, it really worked great. And the degree job and also I heard Tony, you are great at the administrative assistant support conference that they really appreciated your time there and your vision of that, so well done. Okay. hearing nothing else, we'll adjourn and we'll be back next week. For one super duper meeting of caucus and board meeting together because Wednesday of next week is a holiday so Tuesday, we're doubling up on that. Okay. Thanks, everybody. We're adjourned.
