In September, Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission Treasurer Deborah Goldberg suspended Chairwoman Shannon O’Brien from her position, just a year after she was chosen to take on the role. Three people have held the chair since the commission was first created in 2018, though there was limited information as to why O’Brien received the suspension — until now.

Last week, court filings revealed an October letter authored by Goldberg to O’Brien, where she accused her of making “racially, ethnically and culturally insensitive statements,” CBS News reports.

On Tuesday, O’Brien was scheduled to appear in a hearing that could have potentially led to her firing, though a judge made the decision to suspend the meeting to a later date after O’Brien’s team indicated they were unprepared for the meeting and objected to some of the stipulations surrounding it.

Goldberg is now enjoined from holding the meeting until the court holds a hearing on O’Brien’s motion for a preliminary injunction, which is prompting the court to outline procedures for an eventual meeting between the two, “and until further order of the court.” Superior Court Judge Debra Squires-Lee requested that the clerk schedule a hearing on the injunction motion in 20 days.

“The ruling by the court today is the first step in getting my good reputation back after ten weeks of being smeared by the actions of Treasurer Goldberg in suspending me with no process in place for a fair and impartial hearing,” O’Brien said in a statement Tuesday. “The Treasurer wanted a private meeting with little or no procedural safeguards where she would be the judge, jury and executioner. The Treasurer, in her own words to me in a private meeting before nominating me as Chair, told me I needed to clean up the mess and dysfunction of the Cannabis Control Commission (CCC). Instead, the Treasurer has plunged the CCC into even more chaos.”

Goldberg’s communications director Andrew Naplitano said that the offices “respect[s] the court’s ruling” and indicated that the treasurer is ready to hear from O’Brien as soon as possible.

Allegations Made Public

New details emerged on Friday, Dec. 1. Goldberg claimed O’Brien made a remark referring to an Asian person as “yellow.” Goldberg also alleges that O’Brien yelled at her executive assistant, along with inappropriately referencing a former executive director as “missing in action” while he was on paternity leave.

Goldberg also claimed that other staffers made allegations against O’Brien, referencing her behavior and creating a hostile work environment, at which point other investigators were called in. O’Brien had allegedly said, “I should have cleaned it up. It’s difficult sometimes to know how to say the right thing.”

O’Brien, who previously served as state treasurer and was a Democratic nominee for governor, said she is seeking a fair hearing process after her suspension. In September, she sued Goldberg over the suspension and claimed it was without merit.

O’Brien says that her career and reputation are on the line and sought an injunction to stop the private meeting on Tuesday to challenge her suspension, claiming the procedure is unfair and that the state treasurer should not be in charge of making the decision. She also objected to the hearing being private.

In court filings, O’Brien’s attorney Max Stern wrote, “under the circumstances the only likely outcome, unless relief is granted by this court, is that she will not only lose her job, but will go down in history as the former treasurer and commissioner who was fired for making racist statements and she will probably never work again.”

Considering a Delayed Hearing and Restraining Order

On Monday, Squires-Lee heard about 45 minutes of arguments surrounding the hearing’s potential delay, NBC Boston reports.

During the Monday hearing, Stern also indicated that O’Brien’s team is unprepared for the meeting, which was originally scheduled for early November and delayed to Dec. 5, and asked for another “two weeks or so” to prepare. Had the meeting carried on as planned, Stern said O’Brien’s team was not prepared to do anything more than make a statement on its position. 

In her latest court filing, O’Brien said that “none of the accusations have any merit,” and Stern also remained confident that the allegations wouldn’t hold weight.

“If you look at what she’s charged with and look at what really happened, I think you will find that these are laughable actually,” Stern said.

The court documents indicate O’Brien was removed because of accusations of “gross misconduct,” “causing turmoil” and “creating a hostile work environment,” along with making “racially insensitive comments.”

Arguments From Both Sides

Stern suggested that O’Brien’s suspension “accompanied by suggestive and harmful public justifications by the Treasurer” has harmed O’Brien’s reputation, and that she’s entitled to a “name clearing” hearing.” Squires-Lee then pointed out that O’Brien and her legal team wanted to put the details of the allegations against her into the public domain by including them in last week’s court filings.

“The treasurer did not make public the nature of the allegations, you did,” Squires-Lee said.

Assistant Attorney General John Hitt said Monday that Goldberg intends to hold the hearing as scheduled unless Squires-Lee issues a temporary restraining order. The treasurer’s office also argued that it is within the public’s best interest to hold the meeting Tuesday, as taxpayers are paying O’Brien’s $181,722 annual salary during her suspension. 

“The Treasurer takes these allegations very seriously, which is why she wants to provide Chair O’Brien with the opportunity to address them without further delay, and with a fair process that provides an opportunity for her to do that,” Andrew Napolitano, Goldberg’s communications director, said Monday.

“In October, Chair O’Brien was so adamant about having this meeting that she went to court to demand it,” Napolitano continued. “Now, despite knowing about the allegations since September, she is asking to delay the meeting again. It is in the best interest of the taxpayers and the CCC that this meeting proceed.”

Squires-Lee refuted this argument. The judge argued that O’Brien would have continued to receive her salary as the Tuesday hearing could have potentially been the first of multiple hearings, adding that no decision surrounding O’Brien’s removal would have been rendered at this initial hearing. The judge argued that the public interest in a fair hearing was more important than a slight delay in proceedings.

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Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker signed legislation on Thursday to amend the state’s marijuana laws, approving the addition of social equity provisions and other changes to cannabis regulations in the Bay State. Baker approved all but one of the provisions of the bill, which is the first overhaul of the state’s cannabis regulations since voters approved recreational pot use in 2016.

Baker said in a statement that he supports “many of the provisions that this bill adopts to improve regulation of the cannabis industry” as well as “the bill’s efforts to expand opportunities for social equity businesses.”

The compromise bill, which was passed by state lawmakers in the early morning hours of August 1, aims to increase diversity in Massachusetts’ cannabis industry by creating a new social equity trust fund. The program will receive 15% of the revenue from the Marijuana Regulation Fund, which is funded by cannabis taxes, application and licensing fees and penalties levied on licensed cannabis companies. Funds in the social equity trust fund will be dedicated to providing grants and loans to prospective cannabis business owners, focusing on communities of color and those harmed by the nation’s failed prohibition policies.

“This law will rebalance the playing field, where so far wealthy corporations have been able buy their way through the licensing process and too many local, small business owners and Black and brown entrepreneurs have been locked out,” said Senator Sonia Chang-Díaz, the co-chair of the state legislature’s Cannabis Policy Committee. “The reforms and funding we fought so hard for will be game changers, putting Massachusetts back among the leading states for racial justice in our economic policy on cannabis. I’m so grateful to the many community members and grassroots leaders who came together and held the state’s feet to the fire to make this happen.”

At a meeting of the Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) held on Thursday before Baker signed the legislation, commissioner Ava Callender Concepcion encouraged her fellow commissioners to “take a moment today to recognize the significance of this moment and the magnitude of this impact.”

“By no means am I saying that this single piece of legislation will solve every issue that’s facing the cannabis industry, but it is a massive step,” Concepcion said. “This is monumental.”

Cannabis Activists Applaud New Legislation

Shanel Lindsay, a cannabis advocate who campaigned for the 2016 ballot measure that legalized pot in Massachusetts, said that the governor and lawmakers “have made history with this vital — and overdue — grant and loan fund.”

“This bill is an important step forward in undoing the harms of prohibition and over-policing and will provide an important path for families of color to create jobs in their community and generate generational wealth,” said Lindsay, the co-founder of Equitable Opportunities Now.

The bill also gives the CCC the authority to review and approve host community agreements, which cannabis businesses are required to develop with the local jurisdictions where they are located. The agreements will also be limited to the first eight years a business operates, with limits placed on fees required of the companies. Community impact fees will be limited to 3% of a company’s gross receipts and must be “reasonably related” to costs incurred by local governments to implement cannabis legalization and regulation.

Additionally, the legislation allows cannabis companies to be treated as legal businesses under the state tax code, giving them access to standard business deductions denied under federal tax regulations. Sieh Samura, owner and CEO of the Yamba Market dispensary in Cambridge and an advocate for minority representation in cannabis, said that businesses in the industry can face tax burdens of up to 75%.

“It makes the barrier to entry higher and presents a lot of obstacles for entrepreneurs, especially for those with less resources,” he said.

Samura added that the new law will make taxes fairer and provide oversight to the stiff competition for host community agreements while giving funding to help minority entrepreneurs enter the business.

“We’ve got to see the money start flowing, and the earlier it starts flowing, the earlier we’ll see an effect in the bigger market on how many equity businesses there are, how much diversity there is,” Samura said.

Other sections of the bill approved by Baker include provisions to simplify expunging past weed-related convictions and a process for local communities to hold a vote for the approval of cannabis consumption lounges.

Governor Nixes Exploring Medical Pot in Schools

Baker vetoed a provision in the legislation that would have studied the feasibility of allowing students to use cannabis-based therapies in schools. Under that section, the CCC, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Department of Public Health would be directed to study and develop recommendations for “eliminating obstacles and expanding accommodations to possess, administer and consume medical use marijuana and public and private schools” among students who possess valid medical cannabis cards.

In a statement to lawmakers, Baker said that the measure as written “is highly prescriptive — making it clear that the agencies charged with producing the study must identify ways to make medical marijuana widely available within schools, rather than considering whether such an allowance is advisable.”

”The voter initiatives that legalized medical marijuana in 2012 and 2016 included strong measures to keep marijuana away from K-12 schools and school children. Both laws explicitly stated that marijuana would in no circumstance be permitted on school grounds,” Baker added. “Because the study proposed in section 26 clearly works against these important and well-established protections and disregards the clear intentions of the voters in legalizing marijuana use, I cannot approve this part of the bill.”

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