I Got It Wrong, Chuck
On May 20, 2019, Matthew’s wife and I, as co-proprietors of Littleton Apothecary, made our presentation to your board, starting at the 1:01:50 mark.
Right after we presented our proposal and took seats in the front row, your friend David Giannetta made his pitch for one of the two licenses to sell cannabis in town.
Sitting there that evening, listening and watching, I couldn’t help but conclude that David seemed ancillary to the entire enterprise that was “Community Care Collective.” I use the word, “ancillary,” pointedly as it means “having a subordinate nature” or “of lower or secondary rank”—though, I will admit, “ancillary” was not the first word that crossed my mind that day.
What was clear from David’s presentation to your board—and to the “community” ten days later at David’s “Community Outreach Meeting,” where the identical (I was at both) video presentation was given—was that Sanctuary Medicinals was going to be very much involved in David’s business.
In fact, “Sanctuary” leaves David’s mouth no fewer than ten times during his presentation, which starts at the 1:45:48 mark with a 27-second-long, bizarrely musically scored, drone-like arrival at David’s proposed shop, whose driveway is framed by towering trees in full foliage.
Early in David’s presentation, i.e., in fewer than four minutes, at 1:49:30, David shares that Collective has a “strategic alliance” with Sanctuary for Collective’s wholesale supply of cannabis from Sanctuary.
At 1:51:23, David promotes Collective’s “best of the best” executive management team, which—wait for it—includes Jason Sidman of Sanctuary Medicinals, along with Collective’s “Chief of Security” Michael Allen, with whom you, Chuck, were already familiar as Mr. Allen also was Sanctuary’s COS and whom you praise later, at the 2:08:00 mark, saying, “we put a lot of credence in his credentials when Sanctuary came before us.”
At 1:55:50, David tells your board how, thanks to the “agreement with Sanctuary,” Collective will be able to collect for the town a million dollars in cannabis excise tax, which, using basic math, would require Collective to sell $33,000,000.00 of cannabis annually. This was an ambitious representation given that in four fairly recent quarters, Collective sold $4,873,459.67 of cannabis, collecting a paltry $146,204,79, aka 14.6% of David’s then-projected $1,000,000.00.
At the 2:01:24 mark, Select Board member Paul Glavey comments that “it’s good to see another local in the mix,” and David is asked whether he’s going to be the on-site manager, to which David answers, “I won’t be the day-to-day manager.”
At 2:05:00, David is asked by Paul if David has had the opportunity to visit any recreational cannabis shops in the area. Here, David draws a stark contrast between Patriot Care in Lowell and Sanctuary’s shop in Gardner.
It should come as no surprise which of the two David preferred.
At 2:07:15, you, Chuck, speak about “local candidates” for these licenses. Then “Sanctuary” comes out of your mouth when you, Chuck, ask David about the “incubator program” that David will be participating in with his wholesale supplier, aka, Sanctuary Medicinals, which David had mentioned earlier in his (David’s? Sanctuary’s? who’s to say?) presentation.
And holy shit, who answers?
Jason Sidman does, because David turns to Jason, suggesting that Jason provide the answer to the board, rather than answer your question himself.
And Jason seemed more than happy to explain, at the 2:08:40 mark, all about Sanctuary as a “multi-state operator” with four (4) shops in New Hampshire, thirty-five (35) in Florida, and the capped-at-three (3) shops in Massachusetts.
This alone ought to have tipped us all off that this guy was “Big Cannabis”—the Walmart of Cannabis” that David himself makes the point Collective is not at the 1:47:50 mark. Those words are visible on David’s very first slide of his PowerPoint at the 1:46:14 mark.
Later, at the 2:20:22 mark, an audience member makes the point about Massachusetts’ three-shop cap, and then asks, in essence, about this “alliance” between Sanctuary and David.
It’s Jason Sidman—not David—who assures your board “there’s zero problem with that whatsoever” in referring to the wholesale license, completely glossing over the “Is this really just Big Cannabis?” implication.
To my eyes—and for others who knew about the three-shop cap, it looked like Jason was trying to get a prohibited 4th shop and was using David to check the “local preference” box—holding him up as a “Littleton guy” (married, kids, thriving real estate business) who, on that “local preference” demographic alone—one you helped to create as a member of the Marijuana Working Group—would be preferred to not only out-of-towners but also Big-Cannabis applicants because anyone truly “local” would be new to cannabis and, therefore, not already Big.
You know, watching that presentation today, my stomach turns at how you all have played this because, back then, in 2019, it looked to me, from my seat in the front row, that Jason Sidman was using this “Littleton guy”—who, given David’s other businesses, had plausibly enough capital on his own to open, thereby preemptively thwarting suspicions that David would need a “backer.”
Tell you what, Chuck, from where I was sitting that night, I felt bad for David.
I believed he was being used.
By Jason.
And no one could see it.
I sure got that wrong.
When I first read Kant—unavoidable if one opts to study philosophy as an undergrad—I wholeheartedly agreed with Kant’s idea that it was unethical to use people.
Kant’s idea undergirds why, in my writing about poverty in our shared hometown, you’ve not seen any personal stories/individual profiles of the 6.3% of Littletonians who live below the poverty line. It would be unethical for me (according to Kant) and exploitative (in my opinion) to tell their personal stories about living in poverty. The 6.3% statistic ought to be plenty enough evidence that poverty exists. There’s no need for personal details of the struggle.
Using people as a means to one’s ends is wrong.
But Jason wasn’t using David, was he?
It’s easy to see now.
Go back and watch: you, fumbling over your words, the ingratiating, the ass-kissing, Jason talking (word for word) far more than David, and, the grand finale when the creepy drone enters David’s (my attribution of possession offered by 2019-me) envisioned future shop and floats past beefy security guards, a vast collection of books (all on cannabis?), and large potted plants.
Make sure to watch all the way to when (FYI: you might have to strain to hear) Paul Glavey speaks to you at the 2:32:14 mark.
I can only presume that the conversation that followed, which you immediately and oddly labeled to the room as “a subcommittee meeting” was little more than your strident advocacy for your “friends.”
TTYS,
Jkb