Gary, just last week, you said, “I don’t know anything about your business.”

I think you do.

You know something about “my business,” right? You must.

Acting like I just materialized out of no place with my yellow, smiley-face balloon and a bleeding-heart wish to help the impoverished in town is simply impossible to believe.

However, I will admit that I’ve yet to deliver to the Select Board a written proposal with specific details about how SAGA Cannabis would work, you know, in practical terms.

I was willing to do this eight months ago when I suggested on April 24th (at the 37:54 mark) that the Select Board open a window for applications for Matthew’s wife’s unused (because it seems she was paid not to open) license to sell cannabis.

My idea was that in the event that Matthew’s wife’s special permit with the Planning Board lapses (which it did on September 20th, in practical terms) and the license came back to the Select Board (which our Assistant TA Ryan says will be discussed at one of the Select Board’s January 2024 meetings) that the Select Board could have someone ready to “hit the ground running” to open Littleton’s required-by-law 2nd retail cannabis shop.

That idea was ignored.

So, here we are on a morning when poor children in town will smile their “thank-yous” for the gifts they know their poor parents had to sacrifice (food, gas, rent, medicine) to afford with full awareness of their financially stable/flush-with-cash peers who will return from winter break with new iPhones and laptops in their FjallRaven backpacks, going on about their extravagant cake-pop makers and the pricey overnight their families spent at an indoor water park or an all-inclusive week away in the Caribbean.

Our material way of life puts poor children in this difficult position every new year, where the seemingly innocent “What did you get for Christmas?” question on the first day back to school after winter break brings the culturally enforced shame of poverty into public (via school classrooms all over town) of Littleton’s (49) school-aged children.

It doesn’t have to be this way next Christmas.

Gary, your “know-nothing” claim, at the 58:11 mark, is the reason for this holiday post. I’ve decided to try to help you know something about “my business.”

You already know that businesses are in business to make money.

You already know that cannabis businesses make obscene amounts of money (profits) for the owners/operators of those lucrative businesses.

As for my idea on how I would operate a cannabis business in town, you have to keep in mind, Gary, that part of my “business plan” is to shine a light on the greed of the owners/operators (those people who pocket 100% of the profits from their businesses) who pay their workers minimum wage—and sometimes pay their minimum-wage employees nothing at all, instead forcing their employees to accept cannabis in lieu of money (to buy food, medicine, gas) for their work.

You see, Gary, SAGA Cannabis will pay its employees twice the prevailing minimum wage because the obscene profits in this industry can easily allow for this sort of remuneration.

So, maybe after operating costs, there won’t be $1,000,000.00 to hand out. (That $1m estimate is based on the $4.87m of cannabis Giannetta sold over four recent quarters at an industry-standard 20% profit margin.)

Irrespective of annual bottom-line profits, there are two ways to get the impoverished in town money from cannabis profits:

Trickle or Flood:

The trickle approach is flawed for two reasons:

1. Many (all?) policy-based, public programs that help to alleviate poverty are “means-tested,” meaning eligibility is determined by income. If SAGA Cannabis were to give its profits to any recipient on a “regular” basis, the commonwealth might deem these regular payments as “income” and take away the anti-poverty supports that are already in place; and
2. The trickle itself might fluctuate, leaving the poor to concern themselves about “the whims of the cannabis market.”

The flood approach is better for three reasons:

1. As the profits are earned, they will be given away (by lottery) in increments of $10,000.00, which means no one is waiting for money to trickle in;
2. Because these $10,000.00 checks are gifts from SAGA Cannabis to households experiencing poverty in 01460, the gift is not considered “income” for federal (IRS) or state (DOR) taxation, thereby not posing a risk to those who participate in these means-tested programs; and
3. When flooded with $10,000.00, the choices available to that household are broader than the choices available to the same household were it to receive the daily equivalent of $27.40.

Merry Christmas, Gary.

This is for you:

https://youtu.be/fPPCPqDINEk

TTYS,

Jkb