Monday, February 28, 2022
Gov. Phil Scott has ordered state liquor stores to remove Russian-owned brands from their shelves in response to the “illegal and heinous Putin invasion of Ukraine.”
Brands that are labeled "Russian vodka" — such as Stoli and Smirnoff — but are not owned by Russian companies will continue to be sold.
The governor announced the move five days after Russian forces launched an all-out invasion of Ukraine that has earned worldwide condemnation and triggered global economic sanctions. Governors in other states, including Utah, Pennsylvania, Ohio and next-door New Hampshire have instituted similar bans.
“There are few things individual states can do alone, but I am heartened by the overwhelming and united response from the Free World in support of the people of Ukraine,” Scott said in a statement.
The move isn’t exactly expected to cripple the Russian economy. The 79 state-controlled liquor stores in Vermont only sell two brands from Russian owned distilleries — Russian Standard Original Vodka and Hammer + Sickle Vodka.
“They are not very popular brands,” said Scott’s spokesperson, Jason Maulucci.
There are about 750 bottles on the shelves in the stores, and they will be pulled down and returned to state warehouses. Of the $16 million in vodka sales in the state since July 1, the two Russian brands account for just $38,000, or less than half a percent, Maulucci said.
In addition to pulling them from the shelves, Scott ordered Wendy Knight, commissioner of the Department of Liquor and Lottery, to stop buying the Russian booze until further notice.
The state has not decided what to do with all the existing inventory, Maulucci said. The state owns all inventory in its warehouses and liquor stores until the moment of sale.
The state is also ceasing online sales of Russian-owned products, but the complete list of those brands, some of which are higher-end, was not immediately available.
Popular vodka brands founded in Russia, such as Smirnoff, are in fact no longer Russian-owned. Smirnoff, the world’s best-selling vodka brand, is owned by London-based global spirts conglomerate Diageo, Maulucci noted.
The administration may announce other trade restrictions later this week, Maulucci said. “We’re trying to see what else we can do,” he said.
The private sector is also able to take steps to express its solidarity with the people of Ukraine, a sentiment Maulucci says the governor supports. Maulucci pointed to a WCAX story last week about a bartender at Magic Mountain ski resort in Londonderry pouring Stoli vodka down the drain.
Swiatek said that the situation had prompted her to look more thoroughly into the provenance of the vodka on the store's shelves.
"I thought more of them were [Russian], including Stoli," she said.
The state liquor outlet run by the Beverage Warehouse does carry the two Russian-owned brands that will be removed: Russian Standard Original Vodka and Hammer + Sickle Vodka. They are not huge sellers, Swiatek said, but Russian Standard "is one of the best vodkas out there for the money. People do buy it."
Swiatek described the Russian invasion of the Ukraine as "horrific," but said that pulling liquor brands from state agent store shelves, like those at the Beverage Warehouse, is "up to the DLC."
While awaiting direction from the state, Swiatek had pledged to donate any proceeds from Russian vodka sales to the United Help Ukraine nonprofit.
On Tuesday night, Swiatek said she was trying to educate staff and had instructed them to make signs to explain to customers that Smirnoff and Stolichnaya are not Russian-owned. She has also heard there is good vodka from the Ukraine, she added. "I would love to get Ukrainian vodka," she said.
Melissa Pasanen contributed reporting.
Tags: Smirnoff , Magic Mountain , Phil Scott , Russia , Ukraine , invasion , Web Only , Image
Scott said he worried the measure, H.361, would only exacerbate a pattern of inconsistent voting laws in the state. Last year, he also vetoed charter changes in Winooski and Montpelier that would have given noncitizens the right to vote, citing similar concerns. (The legislature later overrode the vetoes.)
“I do not support creating a patchwork of core election laws and policies that are different from town to town,” Scott wrote in his latest veto message. "The fundamentals of voting should be universal and implemented statewide.”
On Town Meeting Day in 2019, Brattleboro voters overwhelmingly approved changing the town charter to lower the voting age, with 68 percent approving the idea. Supporters argued that the change would help engage more young people in local issues and give them more of a say in the future of their community. It would also allow youths to serve on the town selectboard and as town meeting members in Brattleboro's representative form of the Vermont tradition.
Tags: phil scott , voting age , non-citizen voting , Brattleboro , Web Only , Image
Sunday, February 27, 2022
The two cousins behind Zion Growers, Travis Samuels and Brandon McFarlane, said they also have their sights set on a 200,000-square-foot industrial building 100 miles to the southwest, in Proctor, that was once home to the Vermont Marble Company. By the fall harvest, the two say they'll be ready to process hemp into fiber that will be used to create building materials, animal bedding and cardboard.
Hemp — a version of the cannabis plant that won't get you high — is a sustainable replacement for materials such as plastic and composites, said McFarlane, a real estate attorney in Florida who graduated from Norwich University. McFarlane said processing hemp into paper, textiles, and "hempcrete" — a construction material — is more environmentally friendly than using traditional materials. He expects the market to grow.
“We see those as the three main players in the future where hemp is going to either be heavily involved or completely take over in the next couple of decades,” he said.
Tags: Cannabeat , cannabis , hemp , Vermont , Web Only , Image
Friday, February 25, 2022
Developers Jeff Nick and Jeff Davis have sued the City of South Burlington and three city councilors over new land use regulations, which the developers claim would prevent them from building on roughly one-third of their 112-acre property at 835 Hinesburg Road.
The regulations, which passed earlier this month by a 3-2 city council vote after years of contentious negotiations, prohibit development in wildlife corridors, known as “habitat blocks.” The suit, filed Thursday in federal court through an LLC registered in Davis' name, alleges that the City of South Burlington relied on outdated satellite imaging to map the habitat blocks at 835 Hinesburg Road without conducting an in-person assessment of the land’s ecology. As a result, the suit claims, the habitat blocks lack scientific rigor, and the moratorium on development in those areas constitutes an unlawful seizure of their property.
Councilors Meaghan Emery, Helen Riehle and Tim Barritt, all of whom voted in favor of the new regulations, are named as defendants. The suit seeks monetary damages and an injunction barring the city from enforcing the regulations.
Such an urban paradise could be possible, city officials say, if voters pass a $25.9 million bond on Town Meeting Day. If approved by a majority, the spending plan would revamp a six-block stretch of Main Street — from South Union to Battery Street — in the city’s downtown tax-increment financing district. The bond would also pay to either relocate or rehab the city’s 160-year-old “ravine sewer” line at the corner of Main and South Winooski Avenue.
Unlike other money items on the ballot this year — a 4-cent tax rate increase and a $23.8 million capital bond — the TIF bond wouldn't raise residents’ taxes. TIF allows municipalities to borrow money with the expectation that the infrastructure improvements created in the district will generate revenue to repay the debt.
With a March 2023 deadline for Burlington to take out loans for TIF projects in this district, officials say the bond question is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to transform downtown — without raising taxes, to boot. But some opponents have suggested that the promise is too good to be true, and have argued that the conceptual design doesn’t wholly address safety concerns.
Tags: Burlington , Great Streets , Main Street , TIF , tax-increment financing , Town Meeting Day , bond , Web Only , Image
The cash comes from $26 billion in settlements, initially proposed last summer, that resolved thousands of lawsuits brought by state and local governments alleging that the companies helped fuel the addiction crisis. Distributors McKesson, Cardinal and AmerisourceBergen will collectively pay $21 billion; Johnson & Johnson will contribute $5 billion.
Tags: McKesson , Cardinal , Johnson & Johnson , AmerisourceBergen , Vermont Attorney General's Office , T.J. Donovan , Opioid Epidemic , Overdose Deaths , Opioid Settlement , Purdue Pharma , Web Only , Image
If confirmed by the Vermont Senate, Waples, a state judge since 2015, will be the first woman of color to serve on the state's high court.
Her appointment fills the seat held by Justice Beth Robinson, who President Joe Biden nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit last year. Upon confirmation by the U.S. Senate, Robinson became the first openly LGBTQ woman to serve on a federal district court.
Waples' parents were Chinese immigrants who fled the communist revolution and settled in Toronto, Canada, because federal Chinese exclusion laws prevented them from resettling in the U.S. The family later moved to the New York City area, where Waples grew up working in a Chinese restaurant her parents ran.
Tags: Nancy Waples , Gov. Phil Scott , Vermont Supreme Court , appointment , Web Only , Image
Thursday, February 24, 2022
It's unclear how the state would enforce the policy.
Tags: Senate Education Committee , Abenaki , Indigenous people , Judy Dow , Don Stevens , Vermont Agency of Education , Dan French , Web Only , Image
The House Energy and Technology Committee approved the creation of a “clean heat standard” program by a vote of 7-2 after weeks of technical, and at times contentious, testimony.
Rep. Tim Briglin (D-Thetford), chair of the committee, said the bill had been a "heavy lift" but would ensure the transition to lower-carbon fuels was "coordinated, sustained and predictable" for fuel buyers and sellers.
Waiting to act will only leave Vermonters with fewer options, he said.
Tags: Phil Scott , climate change , carbon credits , clean heat , Matt Cota , Ben Walsh , VPIRG , Web Only , Image
Wednesday, February 23, 2022
The new rules, which the council passed by an 8-4 vote, will severely restrict how people can operate short-term rentals such as Airbnbs in the city. The ordinance allows people to use their permanent residence for the rentals, meaning they can rent out single bedrooms in the house or — if they leave temporarily — the whole property. Under the new limits, homeowners can rent out up to three bedrooms at a time.
The rules will curtail the practice of buying homes and apartment buildings as investment properties and using any or all of the units as short-term rentals. And they will stop homeowners from using accessory dwelling units on their property as short-term rentals.
"It's not exactly what I wanted, not exactly what a lot of us wanted," said Councilor Zoraya Hightower (P-Ward 1), who voted for the ordinance.
"It is what most of us supported at some point this year," Hightower said. "I think that moving forward with something most of us were willing to support even a month ago is much better than not moving forward with anything at all."
Tags: short term rentals , Burlington , City Council , Joan Shannon , Deb Lyons , Web Only , Image