PITTSFIELD — On behalf of a coalition of businesses, Flora Cannabis is suing the Vermont Cannabis Control Board over what they deem to be “unreasonable” and “unconstitutional” advertising regulations. 

The Middlebury-based retailer said it’s trying to block the state’s “unprecedented and unconstitutional restrictions on the protected free speech rights of the state’s 500-plus licensed cannabis cultivators, manufacturers, distributors and retailers.” The lawsuit was filed Monday in Addison Superior Court, Civil Division. 

Having a health warning on all cannabis ads and demonstrating that no more than 15 percent of those potentially exposed to an ad are under the age of 21 are considered “unreasonable” burdens, according to the complaint. Also cited in the suit are “unreasonable” prohibitions on “common promotional offers” and “depicting or describing particular cannabis products on social media websites.”

Flora said the litigation is supported by a broad coalition of licensed cultivators, manufacturers, distributors and retailers across Vermont. Scott Sparks, owner of Vermont Bud Barn in Brattleboro, said he’s involved in the suit. 

Dave Silberman, co-founder of Flora, described having attorney A.J. Ruben file the complaint “reluctantly, and only after years of failed attempts to reason with legislature and regulators to find a workable compromise, and to treat us in the same manner as the state treats other ‘regulated vice’ industries such as sports wagering and alcohol.”

“Vermont’s licensed cannabis industry supports reasonable advertising regulations, including targeted regulations to prevent advertising that is especially appealing to underage consumers, or making false or misleading statements,” Silberman said in a statement, calling the regulations “the nation’s most wide-ranging and onerous prohibition on protected speech.”

Current regulations are “illegally muzzling the cannabis industry and preventing us from being able to effectively communicate with adult customers,” Silberman added. 

CCB Chairman James Pepper said he received a copy of the complaint Tuesday night and knew it was coming. 

“The industry has come out strongly asking for advertising reforms,” he said. 

Pepper expects the court will be looking at some of the principles related to the freedom of commercial speech. 

“How they come down on this will be interesting is all I can say,” he said. 

Pepper noted the CCB’s job is to enforce law as it’s written. He plans to ask the Attorney General’s Office to defend the CCB. 

“We really are, as regulators, not in a position to say the advertising laws are good or bad,” he said. “We’ll keep [enforcing] until we’re told otherwise.”

In an interview Monday about goals and projects in the new year, Pepper mentioned the possibility of being sued over the ad regulations. 

“We may need another attorney position especially if the advertising law was struck down,” he said. 

Cannabis companies don’t like needing pre-approval before publishing ads as the process “slows things down for the businesses by about seven days,” Pepper said. With the CCB rejecting a “fair number” of submissions regularly, he anticipates enforcement actions with fines attached will require more resources for his agency. 

“It will be a lot more work for something that could have been dealt with through the advertising review process,” he said. 

CCB data released in October showed nine out of 29 advertising submissions were denied in a month. Six were missing or had illegible health warnings, one appealed to children, another missed audience requirements and one had not been classified. 

Data in July showed 16 advertising submissions were approved and nine were denied in a month. Seven had missing or illegible health warnings. One was missing audience information, and another involved a cannabis product giveaway.

A hearing on a motion for preliminary injunction is set for late January, Ruben said.

As veteran journalist David Moats reflects on Vermont’s changing press landscape, your support is crucial to VTDigger’s continued success. We rely on donations to provide rigorous, independent reporting that keeps our state informed. Help us reach our goal of $539,000 by December 31 to sustain fearless journalism through 2024 and into the new year. Your gift, of any amount, makes an immediate impact.

It wasn’t the hot lead era when I came into the news business, but it wasn’t long after that. We were still on typewriters, though we soon moved on to computers. Even then, type came out on long strips of paper, waxed on the back, that were cut and pasted onto the pages. A darkroom technician developed the photos. Paper boys and girls delivered the paper in the morning, or it came in the mail. 

If you weren’t listening to the ball game the night before, you had to wait ’til you saw the morning paper to find out who won. At the Rutland Herald, where I worked for more than 35 years, a large team gathered on the night of Town Meeting Day to get results by phone from town clerks throughout southern Vermont and Addison County, which appeared in the paper the next morning.

All that has changed. And it’s not just the news business that has changed. Amazon, Google and others have sucked billions of dollars out of local communities, advertising has dried up, and newspapers have cut back or disappeared altogether. You can get the baseball scores inning by inning on your phone. You can sell your boat on Craigslist instead of paying for a classified ad in the local paper.

VTDigger is among the pioneering news websites working to fill the gap caused by the digital revolution. In the last 25 years, 75% of newspaper jobs in Vermont have vanished. A number of the reporters and editors whose jobs disappeared have ended up at VTDigger.

It was this declining pattern in newspapers that inspired founder Anne Galloway to launch VTDigger in 2009.

For a time Anne was the one at the Sunday Times Argus and Rutland Herald who edited the editorials I wrote for the Sunday paper. Those editorials benefited from her close attention. 

When layoffs eliminated Anne’s job, it was not just a personal loss. It was becoming clear that coverage of Vermont news was going to suffer if staffing at the state’s major papers continued to decline. Thus, VTDigger got its start when Anne began her one-woman news operation, and now it has the most robust news staff in the state.

My time at the Herald coincided with what might be viewed as a Golden Age in Vermont journalism. The Herald and the Burlington Free Press occupied large buildings in their respective downtowns and served as nerve centers for their communities. They competed for the biggest stories and helped provide news coverage as thorough as coverage at any state capital in the country. 

But it wasn’t just the big stories that were important. The papers had reporters and stringers who followed the news in small towns throughout the state. Selectboard meetings and school boards didn’t escape attention. 

Now news comes out, not just in the morning, but whenever it’s ready to be posted. In order for it to be something other than a random posting of dubious credibility somewhere on social media, the news requires conscientious reporting and diligent editing. It’s true at newspapers, as it always was, and it’s true at any online source that can be counted on as reliable. That’s why news sites such as VTDigger work to establish and maintain credibility over time in their communities.

VTDigger can celebrate its 15th anniversary because it has established that credibility. One of its early big stories was the EB-5 scandal in the Northeast Kingdom, ultimately revealed as the largest financial fraud in the state’s history. Anne’s reporting was relentless, much to the discomfort of the perpetrators and those in state government whose failure of oversight proved so  costly.

Another story that VTDigger broke was the saga of Daniel Banyai, who ran an illegal gun range and training camp in Pawlet and who had intimidated nearby residents who objected to its presence. Fear in the community was real, but VTDigger dug into the story and eventually, after a tortuous legal process, the camp was closed down. This was a local story with larger implications.

The good stories have been many, and accuracy and clarity are still essential, which is why a professional staff to write and edit the news is also essential. No one gets it right all the time, and they never have, which is why VTDigger’s motto is both accurate and aspirational: “News in pursuit of truth.”

 As a veteran of the news business, it is rewarding for me to sense the dedication and excitement felt by the largely young staff gathering the news for VTDigger. It was exciting for us in the 1980s, as young news editors and reporters, to take the reins at the Rutland Herald and guide its news coverage. It helped bind Vermont together.

During those years, I sometimes asked myself whether I should go to work for a worthy cause — the environment, civil rights, human rights — or go to work in politics. Instead, I stayed with journalism and realized eventually that in doing so I was working on behalf of one of the worthiest causes of all — a free press. I was a practitioner of the First Amendment.

One can foresee the crises of the immediate future. For example, what are Vermont farmers going to do if the Trump administration’s mass deportation of foreign workers decimates the state’s farm labor force? 

That’s one question among many that readers will be asking and editors and reporters will be facing in the coming days. As VTDigger celebrates its 15th anniversary, dedicated practitioners of the First Amendment, at VTDigger and elsewhere, will be as important as ever. 

If you can, please join me in supporting VTDigger’s year-end drive with a donation today. 

Sincerely,

David Moats

Author, journalist and editorial page editor emeritus of the Rutland Herald

Rainbow Delight

Sunday 15

The Queer Craft Fair at the Old Labor Hall in Barre goes beyond your average winter bazaar: The one-day event offers more than 50 LGBTQ+ vendors, as well as an ancestor altar, a missed connections board, a community art project and on-site haircuts. There’s even a masked “access hour” at 10 a.m. for attendees seeking less sensory input while they peruse.

In Her Dreams

Thursday 12

Ukraine’s Grand Kyiv Ballet stages the scintillating spectacle The Nutcracker at Chandler Center for the Arts in Randolph. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s enduring masterpiece of sprightly movement and music awakens from its seasonal slumber, reviving the timeless tale of young Clara, her enchanted toy companion and their ethereal Christmas Eve cohort.

Mobile Bulbs

Thursday 12

Analog Cycles’ snazzy annual Xmas Lights Ride is a slow-paced three(ish)-mile bike parade beginning at the East Poultney Green. Cyclists of all ages mount festively decorated rides to mark the season, while less adventurous folks partake in a watch party at Poultney Pub. Thematic décor runs the holiday gamut, from reindeer to menorah and beyond.

Icy Adaptation

Opens Friday 13

Perfectly timed for these tanking temps, Vermont’s own Complications Company presents The Snow Queen and the Trolls at Off Center for the Dramatic Arts in Burlington. Adapted from Hans Christian Andersen’s 1844 fairy tale, this vibrant and less nightmare-inducing stage play uses puppetry, comedy and song to guide audiences through an unforgettable magical journey.

Raise the Dickens

Sunday 15

Yankee storyteller Willem Lange’s reading of A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story at Lost Nation Theater in Montpelier is a hallmark of the holidays, harking back to 1975. A bona fide believer in authenticity, Lange uses the original cutting of the novel that Charles Dickens himself once performed — and sticks to the story’s lesser-known full title. (It is a ghost story, after all.)

Winter’s Wonderland

Monday 16 & Tuesday 17

The Paul Winter Consort take the stage with vocal powerhouse Theresa Thomason for a “Winter Solstice Celebration” concert at New Hampshire’s Lebanon Opera House and the Flynn in Burlington. The Grammy-winning group is cited as an originator of world music, as well as a new genre — dubbed “earth music” — that interweaves classical, jazz and world elements.

Changing Tides

Ongoing

Furchgott Sourdiffe Gallery’s “Wintertide” exhibition in Shelburne is an annual group show spotlighting 16 diverse Vermont artists. The works are varied in style and range from abstract paintings to art glass — yet thematically unite in their evocation of wintry vibes. Notable names include watercolorist Anne Austin, sculptor Leslie Fry and marble magician Nancy Diefenbach.