By Katy Savage
Plymouth has a new retail cannabis shop.
Al Baram, the owner of the Salt Ash Inn, opened his new retail store, Green Union, beside the Salt Ash last weekend.
The building was a residential apartment, which Baram spent four weeks converting into a retail store before Christmas.
“Everyone really went above and beyond to help me get approved before the end of the year,” he said.
Baram, an experienced grower, got his grow license in September and his retail license from the state just before the new year. He plans to focus on high-end indoor products. He is selling different types of prepackaged flowers as well as edibles and topicals. He also plans to work with local businesses to create unusual products, like cannabis-infused hot sauces.
“We’re going to try to expand to all kinds of different edibles,” he said. “Nobody else is doing that right now.”
Baram plans to partner with Killington Kandy, which sells CBD gummies and chocolates in Killington and Drew’s LLC, which makes salad dressings, salsas and sauces in Chester.
“We’re trying to bring more locally-sourced products,” he said.
Baram has owned Salt Ash Inn, a 200-year-old bed and breakfast with 13 rooms, since 2009.
“I was one of those dudes with a ski vacation house,” he explained. “It was 2009 and they were giving it away and here I am.”
The state began approving cannabis retail licenses in October. Baram is one of 36 retailers currently approved to sell cannabis in Vermont.
Just a bit further east, Patricia Eames, who has owned the Clover Gift Shop for 15 years in Woodstock village, opened a new cannabis shop over Thanksgiving near the Worthy Kitchen in east Woodstock.
Eames said she sells “every category you can think of” at her cannabis store, called Sunday Drive. She works with local cultivators from Mendon, Bridgewater and Hartland.
“Right now we have a lot of gummies and we have take-and-bake cookie dough with 5 mg of THC per cookie,” she said. Eames has sold CBD at Clover Gift Shop for the past six years and this seemed like a natural extension, she said.
“It was a goal of mine and we worked really hard at the store to educate the residents of Woodstock what it would mean to have a dispensary in our town,” she said.
By law, in addition to the state’s 6% sales tax, cannabis businesses collect a 14% excise tax. Excise revenue tax brought in an estimated $330,000 to the state in October, when just three cannabis shops were open across the state, according to the Vermont Department of Taxes. Vermont cannabis stores sold $2.6 million worth of product that first month of legal sales.
“From the very limited window of data we have, we appear to be on track,” said Nellie Marvel, the outreach and education manager for the Vermont Cannabis Control Board.
Those numbers are expected to increase as the number of retailers grow.
“We have a number more (shops) that have opened in the weeks since,” Marvel said. “We’re just now getting into ski season and folks are going to be spending some of their money at these retail shops. We expect to see sales pick up and those revenues continue to go up.”
Marvel said the state projects the excise tax will generate $12 million in revenue in 2023.
Despite the apparent success, Gov. Phil Scott has cautioned against relying on cannabis revenue to fill voids in funding at his regular weekly press conference on Dec. 20, suggesting that people will find other ways to use cannabis to avoid taxes.
“There are a number of people who will still use cannabis but don’t want to pay taxes on it,” Scott said. “We shouldn’t count on the revenue to a great extent, I believe.”
Eames echoed those sentiments and said the state’s high tax collection may deter some people, “20% is a huge tax,” she said. “I hope we see a drop.”
A portion of the excise tax revenue is allocated to fill any deficit in the control board’s budget. With what’s left, 70% goes to the state general fund, and 30% goes to substance abuse and prevention funds.
