The state’s new hashish fee chair nonetheless isn’t saying why she and the physique she leads didn’t publicly disclose her ties to the marijuana enterprise earlier than she took over the group regulating the trade.
“I disclosed all this to the treasurer, I talked to the folks at ethics, because I have no ownership or control, I have no conflict,” Cannabis Control Commission Chair Shannon O’Brien stated. “But out of an abundance of caution, anything to do with any group that I’ve worked with, I will recuse myself in the future.”
O’Brien joined WCVB’s Janet Wu and Ed Harding Sunday for the politics speak present, On the Record, the place she tried to elucidate current revelations that, earlier than she took management of the state’s Cannabis Control Commission on September 1, she had herself been an proprietor and advisor at a pair of marijuana cultivation amenities.
O’Brien is listed on an software filed with the hashish fee in 2020 by Greenfield Greenery LLC, as an “Owner/Partner” in a proposal to open an out of doors rising operation occupying upwards of 100,000 sq. toes.
A second software, by Charlemont FarmWorks LLC, lists O’Brien beneath a bit titled “Our Team,” as an adviser, noting her position as the previous state treasurer and as a former state senator.
The fee’s new chair by no means publicly disclosed this involvement and it wasn’t broadly identified till a Boston Herald article printed these details final week. Both amenities are at the moment working beneath provisional licenses.
A spokesperson for the fee stated final week and O’Brien stated once more Sunday she has since separated from the Greenfield cultivation enterprise the place she was listed as proprietor and CEO, however that the method wouldn’t be full till the enterprise recordsdata the best paperwork and it goes by way of the fee.
“I signed an agreement giving up all equity, ownership and control,” she stated.
Further, O’Brien instructed the hosts, her involvement within the enterprise aspect of issues earlier than she joined the regulatory physique is a characteristic of her employment, not a bug.
“I have been on the other side of things, I’ve been an applicant, it’s a complex process, it’s difficult to raise money, because it’s not legal on the national level,” she stated. “So I’m hoping that I bring a little bit of understanding to these entrepreneurs, but in particular understanding the problem that equity candidates have.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”