ALC-Medical Marijuana Oversight Subcommittee

Culture right do you have any comments or not. and so we're gonna move right along and have a update from the ABC in this story channel or. Pool. He. If you would state your name for the record. Doorly Chandler director of the alcoholic beverage control all right proceed. So I want to provide you all with an update on the licensing of the marijuana facilities right now we have thirty seven of the thirty eight licensed facilities operational with seven of the eight cultivation facilities that are operational just to give you an oversight of the sales in October was three thousand five hundred twenty seven pounds with sales tax collected of two point seven five million this brings us since we had the first dispensary operating and twenty may have twenty nineteen. We've had for four hundred forty seven million sales and to patients with sixty six thousand nine hundred ninety four pounds and currently of the health department has active seventy eight thousand five hundred eighty five cards so I believe the last meeting one of the things that you all wanted updated on was the seed to sale tracking system they were very very as questions and concerns about the operation bill the of that system so we and it began when using that system to its fullest and twenty nineteen when the dispensaries and cultivation started opening and so that came on board in early twenty nineteen cultivations and then as we brought the dispensaries on that system is inter twined it's not just a seed to sale system the Arkansas stem system interacts with a C. I. C.'s licensing system the MMC licensing system that's in my office as well as the. Seed to sale or I'm sorry the a point of sale systems that are located in those dispensaries so those are all intertwined with tentacles that all have to operate in sync we have had issues with that have reported issues to us we have been in communication with bio track beginning in twenty twenty one even as early as twenty nineteen but primarily in twenty twenty when the issue started developing we were working with them so we have recently in October had a meeting with the health department to discuss the tracking issues and the the concerns that were expressed to us at that time by the licensee's on so we had that meeting on October twenty seventh on September third we had members of the bar track team come into Arkansas and meet with us at our offices over the main street mall we had a meeting there to discuss how we're going to go forward to correct the errors and the complications that the licensee's or having including the lack of communications from by the track with those licensees. As it stands right now we have with them. We have sixty five tickets that are that were opened on that date and from those sixty five tickets we have weekly meetings of the ABC staff and enforcement staff have weekly meetings without track every Monday to discuss any issues that are pending we are starting monthly trainings with the licensee Austin out create the flyer a yesterday and sent that out this morning starting next week we'll have we have to have them monthly but we certainly have several of those training lessons classes for the licensee's and the first one I guess it is Tuesday of next week it will be a two hour with a question and answering for those licensees at the end of it with a bio track of personnel to be doing the training on the system of the sixty five tickets that were identified at the end of September and September they have issued a resolved and issued updates for. Let's save. Fifteen of those tickets have been released production and twelve of those tickets are going are set to be released for updates to resolve those issues next week so we're continuing to work with them to improve the system and hopefully get resolution for the licensee's and all the complications that they've been having. Members of the questions. I just feel review. At. I have everything. All your questions answered resolved that. The problems will biotech. Waiting to hear from the providers to see if all of their concerns have been addressed I have heard from the balance track individual who I assume is here. representative from bio track here today should not show up today I do not believe that where there's about tractor present even in the audience to. He has been trying to do that I think would be cheering with me and I've chosen not to visit offline but I would wait to I would reserve my judgment until I hear from those individuals most impacted by it thank you so very much for your record and in the same way with the I've been wanting to have private meetings and I do want to have a private meeting corporal have a meeting under that be in front of the whole committee right what is well and I have expressed the same month last year thank you chaired sets the direction for the committee and I am here today but thank you so very much if you we will wait to hear from individuals most impacted if they're happier then I'll be happier if they're not. And I'm not so thank you so much to really appreciate thank you Mr thank you saying no questions thank you. Now we have a report from the Arkansas cannabis industry association and This press for if you will introduce yourself and have a all of your members to introduce ourselves from the record then we will proceed. Thank you terms sample I'm bill Pascrell I'm here representing Arkansas cannabis industry association to my left is merry Carol Claire maclaren she is the chief compliance officer for a good day phones and we have Robert to been to her left who is an owner and president of natural state medicinals down in White Hall and then on the end as Matt chance he he is an owner and chief operating officer officer of the relief center in Benton county and I I don't know if you'll keep up with the sales data but the release center is the number one dispensary in terms of sales in the state by a good stretch so they're here with me today to answer your questions I have a very brief report attached Director Chandler covered most everything I was going to go over so the only thing I really have to add to her report is a little more on the sales tax collected she mentioned we had a collected about twenty five million this year we've collected fifty two million since the program started in may of twenty nineteen and we're averaging a little bit of above two point five million a month right now in collections and gradually going up so. As you guys keep an eye on it you can kind of use that as a baseline for what we're seeing in sales tax collected each month other than that she covered the points I wanted to cover I wanted to bring these folks up here and answer your questions there there in the field every day and doing the day to day operations and can give you more insight about the industry that hockey. Members are the questions. Senator Chesterfield a bill thank you for being here this morning thank you Mr for recognizing me of are you happy with the progress that has been made with bio track. I let the provider Speaker that the the licensee speak I hear from their folks regularly now there they've tried engage and they reach out yesterday is Director Chandler mentioned they're gonna have a online weapon our seminar next week to try to start working more closely with the industry but I'm a let this panel folks that deal with them on a day to day basis answer that question thank you right because we have been dealing with this for the last several months as providers would you please share with me of what the progresses beyond what they can be doing better especially for the industry I'm hearing from a friend Eddie Armstrong he's not real happy with them so let me hear from you all. Thank you senator just field if you would station employment my name is Robert to been thank you in the distance but when we spoke about this at the last meeting that I was present for and I said there there is no perfect software and and the industry has provided a lot of feedback to buy a tract a lot of pain points it is software development so we don't expect to see changes overnight Leding so I think it's a little too soon to to tell honestly from my apps are they doing better now. It better than it was when you were here two months ago I can speak to that yes I mean from my mind and user standpoint as a cultivator I haven't seen much change their there's a little more responsiveness from support but as far as actual developments in the software to fix our issues but we have not seen it yet and what is the contract amount we have with them I'm not sure anybody know what's the amount of the contract that we have about track the you might could get that from director okay bill you know channel okay. You have any one and. For my part of it in again thank you investors I met Sanski the chief operating officer with the center and again thank you for the opportunity for being here today from our perspective more on the dispensary in the retail side directly dealing with patients that has been our our biggest disappointment with these issues you know adjustments or compliance related matters obviously those are those are severe and those in our experience have been very few and far between but the issue that we have experienced on a more frequent basis is just complete outages you know the system essentially just crashing without knowing you technical terms in that the the challenge that we face from from the retail side is really the lack of communication as Robert stated you know we don't expect a perfect system recognizing the real always if there's a lot of these systems will fail when it comes to technology but when that happens there's there's actually no recourse and that has really not changed much for more experience since the last hearing that that occurred so is it getting better I think it's improving but unfortunately from our perspective the bar's been set pretty low so when we say it's improving it is improving we've started to recognise some responsiveness but you know it's to give you an example if if we happen to know someone in the industry that know someone that knows someone that has a contact with bio track if you can get that email address so that cell phone number that's legal at this point because there is absolutely no technical support to assist us when the systems fail and typically we're the first ones detecting it which again just from my perspective as a failure if no one's monitoring this if there's not even an opportunity for that to the flags and then communicating that out to the industry so that we can communicate that to our team members to our patients and so on that's the. It's a little a little backwards to me as well that typically we're the first ones notifying whoever may be that this issue is presenting and then we just wait and the wait maybe ten minutes it may be two hours and may be an entire day and we have patients drive from all over the state you could be from you know coming all the way four five six hours their whole their whole weekend could be predicated around coming to visit to get the relief and then they show up in unfortunately we have not only can we not help them with that and present a solution but we can't even give them an explanation as to what's occurring beyond unfortunately you know we're unable to operate right now and you're welcome to weigh and you know what comedy owe it is best we can so that that at this point is really not approved to this stage however as I said we are starting to see some responsiveness now that I think stakes have been raised a little bit that at least we're getting some some some notice that okay what we do need to try to. Respond to an email or at least recognize that someone has received this this message but from there there's been very little improvement beyond that. It I find that extremely disturbing because. As you said there are people who are dependent upon this medicine and. If we're not able to get for what would you suggest as a remedy for this you you mentioned that the if you have somebody's email then you can get a quicker response everybody should be on the same level and everybody should be able to at least get the same risk response time or have access to the individual with whom you're communicating so would that be one of the things that you would say we need to make sure that everybody. Yes has that done I've yeah I work with a lot of vendors a lot of different technology a lot of different software I'm hard pressed to to recognize many that I can think of the don't at least have some sort of customer support or you know generally it's the process is Senate ticket in okay what what does that mean like does anyone even see that six so your question some sort of just communication that absolutely that everyone has access to that we can win in a system crashes or problem presents that we are able to track in real time perhaps get some feedback in terms of of where that may be in the process recognized and again some of these fixes may be linked in an extensive but at least then if if for weight you know keeping employees around waiting to see if we're gonna open up preventing or not in keeping patients hanging around if they so choose at least if we knew it's going to be in all day out and you know we can communicate that out and have people not sit there waiting two three four five hours in some instances so that would definitely improved things I would say thank you very much did you have anything. Mary Claire McLaurin director of compliance at good day farm I I tend to agree with what's already been stated we are at good day pharmacy been online for a much longer period than a lot of the other industry members but we. As far as our operational issues with file track we have asked them to come on site and we will have a trainer on site this week and and for two days with our people in the facility giving them hopefully answering a lot of questions about operational issues they're having with our tracking giving them basics in the training that maybe they they didn't have given that we came online during at the COVID pandemic. So I'm hopeful that will resolve some of the day to day issues but yes we are still experiencing things like the glitches and the freezing and file track moving items siblings that are. Clearly issues with the software itself and as previously stated we do understand those things cannot be fixed overnight but. Because. We are a business for most you know tracking our inventory that's important to us but also we have to remain in compliance with our regulators and if the system itself cannot be relied upon to To track what we're doing how can we answer to the regulators and ensure that what we are in compliance with the rules so that's very difficult and that is I think where we need some more understanding and support from by a truck that we rely on them not just for business purposes but to remain in compliance with the laws of the state that are you know. were implemented to ensure that we are you know preventing diversion of product and things like that so. Mr eigenvector I don't want them. Thank you okay you know to some other culture of fight your questions yes some matter heard you say that there's multiple crashes in the last thirty days can you tell me how many times the system's been down. Off the top of my head I would have to verify the date and the most recent but I believe it's been last month if I had if I could verify that information we've had it was on a Friday I know which is for our industry is always going to be our largest revenue day in large patient count day so I know the last thirty days there's been at least one time that it was a pretty link the outage on Friday yeah but you're you're not talking you're talking about one outage you're not multiple outages correct yes and when these when these things occur typically that's how it's it's infrequent and it's you know that we're not talk from our experience at least this is not a daily or weekly occurrence but in the event that it does it's significant I mean if it's if it's a Friday in our instance and mean I could be that the equivalent of seven eight hundred or more patients active way to anywhere from seventy to a hundred thousand dollars and sales tax revenue wise obviously significant amount as well so even one outage has you looking bear and that's just that particular day the ramifications that could affect our business beyond that are pretty significant for sure okay what about supporters and in my hearing also the Choteau you all did not receive support from Lao track. Currently our process that we've been directed when when it an error message presents of the system just completely fails is we've been directed just to submit a work ticket that's that's the process email them a ticket to their customer support and then wait and that way may be. Days it may be weeks could be ours it just its weight at that point with very little communication beyond that. Okay thank you Mr. Senator just to earn thank you Mr all of you you alluded to being trying or having your staff trying. Yeah all staff been trained in the system is that what we're talking about training on how to use the system and all of your staff is being trained as to how to use the system by by trick itself about it so. I do not believe all of our employees have received training direct from bio track some may have gotten here some may have gotten in there but a lot of it is You know them teaching themselves how to use the system and that is why I know that they were doing on site training because of the pandemic and that is why I reached out and asked them to come on site for at least two days to just clear up any confusion that there may have been with us coming online in the last six months so that is definitely just even if it they're getting some of the basics direct from the employees I think we need to clear that out first before we can accurately say what are issues with our track and water issues with maybe a lack of training thank you I'm just wondering if if the lack of training is at the heart of some of the issues do all of you agree that that is a part of the problem. Even though the cultivators as well as distribute. Yes well yet yes and no so as far as fire truck on site training or specific training I guess first of all not all of our employees have received training about tractors not all of them utilized by a track meet since it is as part of our compliance we restrict back down to certain employees that have been trained but they're trained internally buying by our staffs and the reason that is is because every business and every different market is different and the cannabis industry itself is quite dynamic I mean we create new products on a regular basis and the the the softwares rather static so we have to create new ways to create these products inside of the software so a lot of the processes used inside of by a tractor lease on a manufacturing aspect are specific to to our business. Okay so do you think you would benefit from on site trying. in my business specifically I don't believe that would be beneficial I mean I think we have a good understanding of of how the software operates and now have I figured out how to utilize it to the best we can inside of its limitations restrictions you whatever you. So to directly answer questions the answer is no not all of our team members are trained on the bio track software primary reason for from our perspective is we operate our point of sale system through a separate vendor that ties in directly to the seed to sale tracking system that the state requires a five track so we train most of all all of our employees will get trained on our our actual operational software and then we have a handful that are versed with the bio trackside of things in the event that we need to access something through that or you know get in there and make some adjustments where maybe so we do have select similar to Robert with you know related to our compliance protocol select individuals that have access to that but you know as far as my understanding is always been we're not technically a client's of bio track and so committee training that we garnered essentially came from somewhere to have mentioned you know just essentially teaching ourselves our kind of figuring it out there are some tutorial videos and some YouTube channels and things like that you can access some some information but we've had to essentially just figure some things out as we've gone through it with the buyout trackside specifically what I'm trying to figure it out because it by track is the problem in the glitches in their software problem and yet there's no direct training from bio track is that a part of the problem that's what I'm trying to get to what is causing this problem because bio track continues to say that is going just great stuff. Then I'm hearing from you all that we're still having the glitches you know we know that there will be some glitches but that when you are talking about a Friday it's monumental. Absolutely and again from our from our experiences it's not. It's it's not operational in terms of a wrong button got clicked or someone didn't know how to find something these these system outages we're experiencing are coming directly from that system as we integrate into it so in terms of training I don't see how that would solve any problem that we experience our experience of not being nearly this you know as much of phantom products showing up or disappear you know things like that it's it's actually been more of just the system that we have to work with just fails okay it's in addition and institutions are thank you thank you Mr. Your fight your question yes thank you you talked about you talked about the point of sales software. To all of you all have the same software. No Sir each each operator is going to be able to utilize there's I'm sure there's approved and non approved or you know as certain that are recognized but we uh as long as it's tied into our integrated into the by attracts a state system my understanding is that that point is compliant okay it would be the ballot tracked reach one that's different they would have to customize in each one of those would that be correct statement I'm not sure I'm qualified to answer the tech questions not that I know there's some code that gets linked in and that they they connect those two interfaces together but I I I in terms of getting the specifics I'm not sure I can answer that okay all right I've been trying to get that so the the code that the Matt was referring to is called an API to move the microphone up local yeah it's called the the code that Matt was referring to is called an API so on the retail level my understanding is that by a track has an open API that allows third party point of sale vendors to integrate with its seed to sale platform so that I can talk to the state database and and keep track of patient allotments exciter that's on the retail side so there are several different third party software vendors to do integrate with five track so on the dispensary level they can choose if they want to use the vile track one of sale or use one of these third parties on the cultivation side I'm not aware of any software third party software company that integrates with by attracts API they have told me in conversations by a track that is that they are working to make it easier for third parties to integrate with them which would be something that we would we look forward to so we have the option to choose what solution best fits our business needs a right now we we don't have that option. Okay so so we're talking about but about dispensaries and growers having two different softwares in which they have to. Integrate with biotech correct yes Sir so some dispensaries used to just use straight up by a tractor and some choose to to engage a third party that sits on top of by attractive sensually and that's what Matt is doing out of several others that are delighted to do the same. Okay thank you. Are there other questions. Mr can you. Really channeling director of alcoholic beverage control the file track contract those aren't into December fifteenth of twenty seventeen is of four or five hundred sixty thousand dollars renewable yearly on the fifteenth. For a term of seven years okay five hundred sixty thousand annually yes ma'am your term of seven years yes thank you. Are there other questions. Seeing none. Thank you. And Seeing no other business we are adjourned.