Maine

Plant-based food columnist explores Maine’s buried vegetarian history

Published

1 year ago

September 22, 2024

Plant-based food columnist explores Maine’s buried vegetarian history

Avery Yale Kamila in the King Gallery at the Maine Historical Society Museum in Portland, where she has co-curated an exhibit about the state’s history of vegetarianism. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

While you may be seeing more and more vegetarian and vegan restaurants or dishes on menus around the state these days, Portland-based journalist and community organizer Avery Yale Kamila wants you to realize that plant-based diets are nothing new here. In fact, vegetarians have been in Maine for centuries, even predating the word “vegetarian.”

Kamila knows a thing or two about plant-based eating. A vegan since 1991, she writes the Vegan Kitchen column for the Maine Sunday Telegram and has been the Press Herald’s plant-based food columnist for 15 years. In 2020, she created the Maine Vegetarian History Project.

This month, the Maine Historical Society Museum debuted “Maine’s Untold Vegetarian History,” an exhibit that Kamila co-curated with John Babin, author and visitor services manager at the Maine Historical Society.

Through historic and contemporary canned and packaged foods, manuscripts, books, menus, maps and photos, the exhibit exposes the deep roots of vegetarianism in Maine. It also spotlights the groundbreaking ideas and work of vegetarian Mainers throughout history, from Father Sébastian Rale in the early 18th century, to 19th-century proponents like Seventh-day Adventist prophet Ellen G. White and Portland journalist Jeremiah Hacker, to the back-to-the-land teachings of Helen and Scott Nearing in the later 20th century.

We sat down with Kamila recently to talk about how she launched her research into Maine’s vegetarian history, why the state’s early vegetarians came to adopt the diet, what they ate and how they were treated (and often mistreated) by their contemporaries, and what the future of vegetarianism might look like in Maine.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How far back does vegetarianism go in Maine? And did the early adopters come to it for health or animal welfare reasons?

We don’t really know how far back it goes, because this is a buried history. It hasn’t been included in conventional history books or exhibitions or any kind of cultural sharing of information until now.

The earliest person that I’ve identified as a Maine vegetarian is Father Sébastian Rale (1657-1724), who was a Jesuit priest who came from France and moved to Maine. That was 300 years ago. He announced his vegetarianism in a letter to his nephew.

But were there earlier people here practicing vegetarianism? I don’t know. One of the interesting things to me is that you think about vegetarians today, you’d think they’re going to be women, right? There are men, but it tilts that way (toward women), that’s what demographics say. But all the early vegetarians I found that are documented are men – white, prominent Christian men. And that’s why their vegetarianism has been preserved: because they were a prominent person for another reason, and as a result, (their vegetarianism) got saved too, in an archive somewhere.

In terms of motivations, up until 100 years ago, it was all religious motivations. The people who were vegetarians in Maine that I found, they were all Christians. There’s always been this ascetic tradition running through Christianity. When Rale was alive, that was a time in France when there was an upwelling of interest in vegetarianism. The Jesuits have always been into asceticism. It was about living a simple life, but it was also a health motivation. Benjamin Franklin adopted vegetarianism in 1722, and he did it because he read Thomas Tryon’s famous book, “Way to Health.” So did Rale read that book? We don’t know.

In terms of animal rights as a movement, you really don’t see that until the late 20th century.

This exhibit is titled “Maine’s Untold Vegetarian History.” Why has this information been largely excluded from the conventional record?

I don’t think traditional historians have been vegetarians. The 19th- and 20th-century scholars who examined Rale and his diet and lifestyle realized he was an ascetic, but they didn’t understand the vegetarianism thing. In Rale’s time the word ‘vegetarianism’ didn’t even exist, so you had to use code words. It’s kind of like trying to ferret out LGBTQ history from conventional history, because people didn’t talk about it.

The bigger answer is that vegetarians have historically faced prejudice and probably always will. Sometimes, it’s extreme and they’re being massacred like they were in the Crusades, and other times, it’s jokes about tofu. A couple of years ago, there was a study in one of the psychology journals; they did a survey and found that most people held a stronger prejudice against vegetarians than hard drug users.

Ellen Gould Harmon White, born in Gorham in 1827 and a co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, was a strong advocate for vegetarianism. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

Maine’s early vegetarians seemed also to limit their sugar and salt intake, and abstain from caffeine and alcohol. Was that part of the vegetarian ethos at the time, or the influence of Christian temperance?

In the early 19th century, the temperance movement was already active in Maine. At that time, the word ‘vegetarian’ doesn’t exist. The word ‘temperance’ does exist. Vegetarianism was considered part of temperance. There were all these names for vegetarianism: the light diet, the vegetable diet, the temperance diet, Grahamism. The early temperance movement held every tenet that Sylvester Graham and Ellen G. White prescribed and the Adventists still believe today: Don’t eat or limit animal products, get fresh air, bathe, get exercise and good sleep, drink water. Some of these things seem obvious today, but in the early 19th century, there were no showers; you didn’t even have a bathtub or city water.

Also, the temperance movement said, ‘Don’t drink, don’t do any drugs, caffeine, tobacco or any kind of stimulant.’ And they included spices in stimulants, because (spices) were from foreign countries, and God knows what that cinnamon is going to do to you. I would say that’s a pretty good reason why (historically) we’ve had such bland food in New England.

What were Maine’s early vegetarian diets like?

If you were a vegetarian in the 1820s or 1830s, your food was super limited. You would eat whole-grain bread. If you could get some oatmeal or cornmeal, you might have a porridge. You’d eat vegetables and fruit if you could get some – in summer you have some, in winter you have none, because canning hasn’t been invented yet. People in general ate much more simply than we do now. Bread and butter, that was a meal right there. You add a glass of water, you’re done.

Water Lily Three Minute Oat Flakes made exclusively for H.S. Melcher Co., a wholesale produce company that operated on Fore Street in Portland in the 1800s. Robinson’s Patent Barley, sold by the William S. Davis grocery store in 1828, could be mixed with water or milk to create a simple porridge. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

Once we get Ellen G. White coming on the scene and she gets (Dr. John Harvey Kellogg) inventing all this stuff, all of a sudden there were vegetarian food products you could buy, and your food became interesting. You had canned food, and the canning process was perfected here in Portland. Now vegetarians could have fruits and vegetables all year round. When peanut butter becomes fashionable at the end of the 1800s and early 1900s, there are all these fascinating newspaper cooking columns in Maine about how to use peanut butter, like for making a sandwich.

How were early Maine vegetarians viewed by their omnivore contemporaries?

Once we get to Jeremiah Hacker, who was the editor and writer of the Portland Pleasure Boat from 1845 into the 1860s, he talks about prejudice against vegetarians. By the time he’s writing, the word vegetarian gets coined, I think in 1849. He starts using the word in his newspaper. He was writing all these radical vegetarian things back in the 19th century.

However, in some of the best examples I’ve seen, he attributes (the prejudice) to his religious views, or anti-religious views. He was a radical in every direction. He was a Christian, but he thought all the priests and preachers in town weren’t living their true Christian ideals.

What historical period was the heyday of vegetarianism in Maine, or is it now?

I would say it’s probably now. One of the interesting things that’s not explored in this show is, what’s the role of technology in the spread of vegetarianism? The iPhone was invented in 2007, and things really started to kick up here in Maine and nationally around that time. So is that connected? And what about social media? I don’t know if anybody has examined that, but I think those have a role to play. Because with the phones, all of a sudden you get podcasts and different ways to spread messages.

Vegetarianism goes through cycles of interest. We’re in one right now. The early 1700s was probably also one. You get another upwelling in the early 1800s that goes until about the Civil War, then you get another that comes in the late 1800s until the early 20th century. That dies out with World Wars I and II and comes back again the ’60s and ’70s. Now we’re still kind of riding that one, and when that dies down, I don’t know.

We don’t know how many vegetarians are in Portland right now, because there are no surveys that are state-based. There’s national polling on how many vegetarians are in the U.S. The surveys vary, depending how they’re done, but in general, it’s assumed that 6% of Americans are vegetarian, 3% are vegan.

You get a higher percentage if you’re in a real Democratic, liberal stronghold like Portland. Or Portland, Oregon, or San Francisco. It could be up to 12% of the population are vegetarians in a liberal hot spot like this, but nobody’s ever done a survey, so we don’t know.

You started the Maine Vegetarian History Project in 2020. Was it a pandemic project for you?

Yes, it was. But it started in March, just before the pandemic. I was moving a box of books in my office at home, and I came across this book, a reprint of the 1838 book by Dr. William Alcott called ‘Vegetable Diet.’ It’s a medical book, with medical opinions about vegetarianism.

I was looking through it, and I came to this page with a letter from a doctor in Maine. I’m like, ‘Who’s this dude? Why has nobody told me about him before?’ So all of a sudden I’m fascinated, and I Google him and find he’s got a diary over here (at the Maine Historical Society’s Brown Research Library). So I went to the library that morning and looked at the diaries, and I realized there were vegetarian references in there. Then the pandemic happens, and everything closes, so I was like, ‘That’s the end of that.’

But it wasn’t, because there’s all this archival material online. So then I just leaned into that and started looking. Just because of the power of technology, I was able to continue. And it was the pandemic, what else did I have to do? I was reading all these history books and doing archival research. That’s how it all started.

Your parents were omnivores. You became vegetarian in high school and vegan a few years later. What led you to those dietary shifts?

Looking back at my childhood, I’m a person who should’ve been a vegetarian since birth, because I was always having problems with meat being fed to me. I’ve got this horrifying memory of being fed lobster, and hating it, and being told to just suck the meat out of the legs. And I’m getting so grossed out. It looks like a bug to me.

What really tipped me was in my sophomore year at Oak Hill High School in Wales, every student had to write a speech for a competition. The teacher handed out a list of topics, and one was animal rights. I was like, ‘Well, I don’t know what that is, but I like animals.’ So in my research for the speech, I found out about vegetarianism. I gave the speech, won a prize and became a vegetarian.

Then I became a vegan in college at Syracuse. I joined a group called Syracuse University for Animal Rights. My first meeting, somebody turned to me and asked, ‘Are you a vegan?’ I think I’d read that word before, but nobody’d ever spoken that word in Maine. He said, ‘Well then you need to read this book,’ and he handed me John Robbins’ ‘Diet for a New America.’ I went back to my dorm room and read it, and I’m like, ‘OK, well, now I’m a vegan.’

Where do you see the future of vegetarianism in Maine headed from here?

What I’m seeing that’s interesting – that when I first started writing my column 15 years ago wasn’t the case – is that a lot of chefs today are much more open to plant-based dishes as a normal thing you’d have, not like, ‘I’m putting this one dish on there for the vegetarians.’ When I talk to these chefs, they say they’re not vegetarian, but they don’t like to eat steak all the time themselves. They say they like to have something lighter some nights and mix it up.

But unless there’s a major cultural shift, I don’t see everybody becoming a vegetarian. And I don’t think everybody needs to. What the science around climate change says is that people in affluent countries like the U.S. have to eat way less (meat). So I think people will be eating more of a flexitarian diet, and that’ll become more of a normal thing.

In 1845, radical newspaperman Jeremiah Hacker first published the Pleasure Boat, an alternative weekly newspaper and Maine’s earliest known vegetarian publication. Courtesy of the Collections of Maine Historical Society, Coll. 3124

Which historical figure from your exhibit would you most want to invite for dinner, and what would you serve them?

It would have to be Ellen G. White. I would have to serve something really basic. We could have some plant-based meat like seitan, maybe a casserole, definitely some vegetables, definitely some fresh fruit that I understand she always had on the table. And we could have some whole-wheat bread. Oh, my God, it would be so amazing to talk with her and find out her thoughts.

But imagine having dinner with Jeremiah Hacker and the things he might say? Because Ellen G. White would probably say things in a very moderate kind of way. But Hacker, I don’t know what he would say. He’d be an interesting dinner guest. If Hacker walked down the street today, nobody would notice. They’d be like, ‘There’s another hipster.’ He’d fit right in.

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Maine

State recommends major changes for Maine’s mobile home parks

Published

4 hours ago

January 6, 2026

Press Room

State recommends major changes for Maine’s mobile home parks

Residents of Bay Bridge Estates in Brunswick said that Tuesday was the day that their homes were being hooked up to the town’s water supply. (Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer)

A new state report offers a series of recommendations to expand existing mobile home parks in Maine and build new ones, allow homeowners to obtain traditional mortgages at more favorable rates and overhaul the state’s oversight of parks.

The 30-page report, written by the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future and mandated by legislation passed last year, is intended to be a blueprint for future proposals as lawmakers seek to protect the roughly 45,000 Maine residents who live in mobile home parks.

It will be presented to the Housing and Economic Development Committee this month.

Mobile home parks in Maine and across the country — often considered the last form of unsubsidized affordable housing — are increasingly being purchased by out-of-state investors who raise the monthly lot rents, in some cases doubling or tripling prices, according to national data.

Park residents, often low-income families or seniors on a fixed income, own their homes but not the land they sit on and residents are essentially helpless against rent increases.

“If they’re forced to lose their housing because the rents get too high, it’s hard to see where they’d be able to go,” said Greg Payne, senior housing adviser for the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future.

The state is feverishly trying to build tens of thousands of housing units in the coming years, but Payne said in an interview it’s just as important to “protect the housing that we do have.”

“If we lose any of our affordable housing stock, that’s going to make our challenge even greater,” he said.

FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE FOR OWNERS, RESIDENTS

Many state officials would like to see more mom-and-pop or cooperatively owned manufactured housing communities, especially as the state tries to ramp up production.

But according to the report, the number of locally owned communities has been dwindling, and smaller owners and developers frequently struggle to increase available housing in their parks. Boosting supply could also help lower costs for existing residents.

As with all construction, it has gotten expensive.

“There are plenty of owners who I think would be willing to expand if the math worked,” Payne said. “If we’re able to help with that, it creates more units that we desperately need across the state and creates the opportunity to spread existing costs across more households.”

The report recommends, among other things, making it easier for park owners to access MaineHousing construction loans, which state statute currently prohibits.

The office also suggested developing a subsidy program that would give owners a forgivable loan if they agree to charge income-restricted lot rents to income-restricted households.

‘TOO GOOD TO MISS’

The report also recommends allowing mobile home buyers to take out traditional mortgage loans.

Historically, loans for manufactured homes have been titled as personal property or “chattel” loans, similar to cars. These loans, according to the report, typically have shorter terms, higher interest rates, fewer lenders to choose from and inferior consumer protection.

Over the years, construction technology and government regulations have evolved and factory-built houses are now often comparable to site-built housing, according to the report.

The price gap between the two is also narrowing, with many mobile homes selling for well over $200,000.

Payne said he spoke to an Old Orchard Beach resident whose interest rate is more than 11%, and is paying about $640 a month for a $60,000 loan, on top of her monthly lot rent. Comparatively, according to mortgage buyer Freddie Mac, the current interest rate on a 30-year mortgage is about 6.15%. That would save her hundreds of dollars a month.

“We don’t often have the opportunity to increase affordability and have nobody losing,” Payne said. “It’s an opportunity that could be too good to miss.”

‘SYSTEMIC LACK OF SUPPORT’

The report recommends an overhaul or “reimagining” of state regulation and oversight of mobile home communities to better serve residents.

Currently, the Maine Manufactured Housing Board is in charge of licensing and inspecting parks, while landlord and tenant issues and consumer protection claims are enforced by the Office of the Maine Attorney General or the court system.

But according to the report there is a “systemic lack of support” from state government in addressing some of the more common problems in parks — poor living conditions, untenable community rules and fees, disregard of state laws — and attempts to get help from either agency often result in referrals elsewhere.

“This pattern of circular referrals, rarely leading to support, often leaves park residents feeling isolated and unheard,” the report says.

The office recommends that the Legislature transfer the responsibility for certification, technical assistance and regulatory coordination from the Office of Professional and Occupational Regulation, where the board is currently housed, to the Maine Office of Community Affairs, which would also serve as a “first call” for residents seeking assistance.

Compliance with state rules would be handled by the attorney general’s office, which may need to find ways to provide more legal support to homeowners.

Finally, the report recommends directing more private resources toward supporting a housing attorney at Pine Tree Legal Assistance who has expertise in mobile home park issues.

LEGISLATIVE EFFORTS

Mobile home parks have been a hot-button issue in the last few Legislative sessions.

Lawmakers last year passed a series of bills designed to protect mobile homeowners, including one that gives park residents the “right of first refusal” if their community goes up for sale.

In addition to the recommendations outlined in the recent report, the state is seeking to collect more data about the state’s parks.

Historically, the Maine Manufactured Housing Board has not tracked whether the parks are owned by resident co-ops, out-of-state corporations or Maine-based operators. It also collected no information about how many lots are in each park, vacancies or average lot rents.

That information is now required in order to license a park.

Another bill, which has resulted in confusion and some retaliatory rent increases, requires owners to provide 90 days written notice of a rent increase and establishes a process for residents to request mediation if the increase is more than the Consumer Price Index plus 1%. While owners are required by the new law to act in good faith, they are not prevented from moving forward with an increase.

Efforts to institute statewide rent control failed in the last session, in part due to Maine’s long history of local control, but many communities, including Brunswick, Saco and Sanford, have passed rent control measures or moratoriums on rent increases as they grapple with how to protect residents.

The state report includes a model rent stabilization ordinance for municipalities but no mandate.

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Maine

How labels make or break Maine’s recreational cannabis compliance system

Published

16 hours ago

January 6, 2026

Press Room

How labels make or break Maine’s recreational cannabis compliance system

A group of recreational cannabis flower products purchased in October at Brilliant Buds in Bethel were fully compliant with state requirements.

The stickers for the “Find.” brand products displayed required warnings, strain names, potency values, processor license information and batch identifiers.

A Find-brand package purchased at Brilliant Buds in Bethel shows a medical-use label faintly visible beneath the recreational sticker, including the strain name MAC 1. Find is Curaleaf’s economy and mid-tier product line, typically selling for about $75 an ounce in Maine’s medical market and around $125 an ounce in recreational retail. (Courtesy photo)

But when the recreational stickers were peeled back after being purchased on Oct. 24, medical cannabis labels were found underneath. The labels included Curaleaf’s Auburn facility address and medical-style batch data. Curaleaf is one of the largest multistate medical cannabis operators in the United States.

Was it a labeling error? Was the product for medical use instead of recreational? Was it simply a case of recycled packaging?

Those questions and more are at the core of labeling irregularities in Maine’s cannabis packaging, verification and retail compliance model: repurposed or mislabeled consumer packages can move through intake, stocking and point-of-sale without triggering an alert.

One recreational-use bag labeled “Turnpike Cookies” revealed a medical label beneath it printed with the strain “MAC 1.” A second bag of “Mintz Snackz” had the same label. In both cases, the originally labeled strain name was faintly visible through the sticker.

The discovery does not establish wrongdoing or intentional misconduct, but it does raise questions for consumers and regulators who may not necessarily be able to distinguish if a product on the shelf had an old label that was not properly removed or if the product was intended for one market but was being sold in the other without following all required rules.

In the case of the layered labels at Brilliant Buds, it was all legal. Maine’s recreational cannabis rules do not prohibit layered labels, and the final, visible sticker is treated as the compliance record at retail.

With labels from different regulatory programs remaining visible beneath a retail sticker, however, it has created confusion among consumers who want to know exactly where their cannabis is from and raised questions about packaging quality control.

Under Maine rules, the label itself is the mechanism by which retail compliance is communicated and enforced. The Office of Cannabis Policy allows multiple labels on a recreational package, provided required information is not obstructed.

Maine’s recreational cannabis program includes mandatory testing, track and trace, stringent labeling and universal symbols. The medical cannabis program does not require mandatory testing or track & trace.

Kaspar Heinrici, chief executive director of SeaWeed Co. in Portland, said the recreational cannabis market operates under a level of scrutiny that is often misunderstood by the public.

“There is still a misperception that cannabis operators are putting a plant into a bag with little oversight,” he said. “The reality is that regulated recreational operators are working with a level of organization, testing and standard operating procedures closer to the medical or financial services industries.”

TRACING CANNABIS

Maine’s recreational system requires cannabis sold at retail to be identifiable for recall purposes through batch information printed on the label.

Heinrici said Maine’s batch-based approach is intended to balance public health protections with operational practicality.

“If there is an issue with one unit of a product, it likely extends to the rest of the package and potentially the package it came from,” he said. “Being overly specific at the individual unit level is not going to provide additional benefit.”

At the retail shelf, compliance and recall depend on the accuracy of the information printed on the visible retail label. Inspection quality can vary depending on staffing levels, lighting, workflow and training. Batch numbers are often printed in small type.

The rule does not require individual retail units, such as eighths, quarters, ounces or pre-rolls, to carry a unique electronic identifier, radio frequency identification tags or scannable code. But it does for cultivation and wholesale inventory movement.

Maine uses Metrc (short for Marijuana Enforcement Tracking Reporting Compliance) a track-and-trace inventory system adopted in many cannabis jurisdictions.

Other states use different track-and-trace platforms. For example, Connecticut uses BioTrack. In Connecticut, each retail cannabis unit carries a printed unit identification number with a machine-readable barcode, as well as a QR code with a link.

Curaleaf is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, and operates more than 150 operates medical and recreational dispensaries nationwide.

Maine consumers do not have a comparable consumer-facing verification tool.

Heinrici said that while testing and traceability are essential, additional regulatory layers do not always translate into better consumer outcomes.

“The track-and-trace and testing requirements are important for public health, but they verge on being overly detailed and overly burdensome for the end consumer,” he said. “More regulation always comes with a cost, and that cost ultimately shows up at the register.”

SHIFTING MARKET IN MAINE

Curaleaf entered Maine in 2016 through its relationship with Remedy Compassion Center, one of the state’s original eight nonprofit medical cannabis dispensaries and the first to open under Maine’s medical program.

While Curaleaf exited recreational retail storefronts in Maine in 2023, citing competitive pressures, the company remained active in the state’s medical cannabis program as well as recreational cultivation and manufacturing.

It appears Curaleaf is dipping its toes back into recreational retail. In late November, job postings for Curaleaf-managed operations at Brilliant Buds in Bethel signaled a return through a licensed partner rather than a Curaleaf-branded store. Additional Curaleaf job listings in Bangor indicate a recreational retail component planned for that location.

Curaleaf did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this article. Attempts to seek comment from Brilliant Buds were also unsuccessful.

A reporter visited the Bethel store in person but was asked to leave upon entry. A follow-up phone call to the store and subsequent emails seeking comment were not answered.

Office of Cannabis Policy Data Analytics Director Eric Miller said recently that recreational sales are strongest in western and southern Maine, particularly in border-adjacent regions near New Hampshire, a factor that may help explain Curaleaf’s focus on Bethel.

John Hudak, the director of Maine’s Office of Cannabis Policy, said sales data suggest some border effects, but emphasized they are not the primary driver of Maine’s recreational market.

“I think New Hampshire is having an impact in York and Cumberland County, but it’s not the major driver of Maine’s cannabis economy,” Hudak said, adding that tourism and Maine consumers account for most recreational sales.

MEDICAL vs. RECREATIONAL

Maine regulates cannabis under three distinct frameworks: medical cannabis, recreational cannabis and hemp-derived products. Each system operates under different statutes, labeling rules, testing standards and tax structures.

Recreational cannabis is overseen by the Office of Cannabis Policy and is subject to labeling rules, mandatory third-party testing, Metrc oversight and a 10% excise tax. As of late 2025, Maine lists roughly 180 licensed recreational cannabis stores, along with 78 cultivation facilities and 81 manufacturing facilities statewide.

Maine’s medical cannabis program is also overseen, separately, by the Office of Cannabis Policy. Maine lists 86 active medical dispensaries and approximately 1,554 registered caregivers statewide. A medical cannabis caregiver is an individual or business authorized to grow and sell cannabis directly to registered patients, often operating at smaller scale and under less prescriptive labeling and testing rules.

“From a caregiver standpoint, testing and transparency matter because trust is everything,” said a Franklin County-area medical cannabis caregiver who requested anonymity. “Even unintentional confusion around labeling or testing can make patients question whether a product is safe.”

In July, cPort Credit Union notified many medical cannabis caregivers and caregiver storefronts statewide that their business accounts would be closed, citing evolving compliance expectations and regulatory risk. The decision did not apply to licensed medical dispensaries, which are subject to higher levels of oversight.

“Patients ask more questions now than they did a few years ago,” said the Franklin County caregiver. “Public perception around safety is shaped as much by labeling and communication as by the product itself.”

The labeling incident in Bethel illustrates a possible hole in Maine’s recreational oversight model. Cultivation and wholesale movement can be tracked with some accuracy, but at the retail shelf things can get much more dicey, relying on individual inspectors and label accuracy — rather than actual traceability.

At the point of sale, the sticker is the system. Against that backdrop, state regulators are continuing broader discussions about testing standards and consumer protection.

The Office of Cannabis Policy hosted a Cannabis Conversation on Testing Lab Standards on Dec. 22, hosted by director Hudak, which focused on how the state and the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention work together to ensure certified cannabis testing labs, examining laboratory procedures, oversight and public health standards. The video can be watched on Maine OCP’s YouTube page.

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Maine

Maine secures $1.9M settlement for bitcoin kiosk scam victims

Published

1 day ago

January 5, 2026

Press Room

Maine secures .9M settlement for bitcoin kiosk scam victims

A major cryptocurrency ATM operator will pay $1.9 million to Maine residents who were defrauded by scammers using the company’s kiosks, according to a consent agreement with the state.

The agreement, between Bitcoin Depot and the Maine Bureau of Consumer Credit Protection, follows a two-year investigation that included the Office of the Maine Attorney General. It was signed in December and announced Monday.

Bitcoin Depot is based in Atlanta and operates over 25,000 kiosks in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Mexico and Hong Kong, according to its website. The company operated about 80 unlicensed kiosks in Maine — until the state passed emergency legislation in June to regulate virtual currency ATMs.

Bitcoin Depot’s website no longer lists kiosks in Maine. “They’ve been gone since last summer,” said Linda Conti, bureau superintendent.

Most of the company’s machines were in York, Cumberland, Kennebec and Penobscot counties, Conti said.

It’s unclear how many Mainers have been scammed through Bitcoin Depot kiosks, exactly where they were located or how much money each victim might receive.

“We will not know how much each refund will be until we have received and reviewed all of the claims,” according to information posted on the bureau’s website.

Claims must be filed on or before April 1, 2026, and may be submitted online. The bureau will begin issuing refunds in May.

INVESTIGATIONS UNDERWAY

The bureau said the scams involved transactions made at Bitcoin Depot kiosks, where people purchased cryptocurrency and deposited it into “unhosted wallets” provided by third-party fraudsters.

An unhosted wallet is a type of digital wallet that is hosted and controlled by a user, rather than by a financial institution, money transmitter, exchange or other virtual asset service provider.

Although Bitcoin Depot no longer has kiosks in Maine,nearly 100 other cryptocurrency ATMs are still operating across the state, Conti said, including CoinFlip, CoinStar and Coinme machines.

In March 2023, bureau investigators found that Bitcoin Depot kiosks in Maine appeared to provide money transmission functions and invited the company to apply for a money transmitter license, according to the consent agreement.

The company applied for a license that month, but the application wasn’t deemed complete until February 2025 and was denied in April 2025. Bitcoin Depot appealed the decision in May.

In July 2025, the bureau provided Bitcoin Depot with a list of consumer transactions at its kiosks in which Maine consumers may have suffered financial loss and harm as a result of third-party fraudsters.

As part of the consent agreement, Bitcoin Depot must send a $1.9 million check to Maine’s attorney general by Feb. 2 and has agreed to fully comply with Maine’s consumer protection laws as a now-licensed money transmitter.

Bitcoin Depot is still licensed to transmit funds in Maine through online transactions, Conti said.

The bureau continues to investigate other cryptocurrency kiosk operators, she said. “The kiosks are where the trouble happens,” Conti said.

CONSUMER PROTECTION

Gov. Janet Mills praised the bureau for securing an agreement with Bitcoin Depot “that will put money back into the pockets of Maine people who were defrauded by predatory third-party scammers.”

Mills urged all Mainers “to talk with their loved ones about the threats of scammers and precautions to take to avoid these cruel and often sophisticated schemes.”

Maine has recently adopted laws that protect consumers from third-party scammers, including the Maine Money Transmission Modernization Act, which the governor signed in 2024.

In June 2025, Mills also signed emergency legislation that limits daily transmission amounts from virtual currency kiosks, caps fees and exchange rates, and provides redress for consumers.

“Maine’s new consumer protection laws have allowed us to reach this consent agreement,” Conti said. “Whenever you have new technologies, you’re going to have people who are vulnerable and need to be protected.”

The laws include an unhosted wallet provision, which requires money transmitters to employ new technologies to ensure that Maine consumers own and control their virtual wallets.

To be eligible for a portion of the $1.9 million, claimants must have been a Maine resident between 2022 and 2025; used a Bitcoin Depot kiosk in Maine during that period to convert cash to cryptocurrecy; and deposited the cryptocurrency into an unhosted wallet provided by a scammer or third-party fraudster.

The full consent agreement and FAQs for consumers are available on the bureau’s website. For more information call 800-332-8529 or 207-624-8527.

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