how long have you worked at the fire station?
I started in January of 2020 so I’ve been working at TFS for over four years!
what were you doing when you started at tfs?
I was a receptionist for about three weeks, then I was asked to move to a Budtender position shortly after that. I think I was one of the only female Budtenders. I did that for a few months and then I was asked to move to the admin team right before I graduated from NMU. I didn’t know what I was going to do after school, so I was like, okay, I’m going with the flow, and here I am now.
what is licensing and compliance?
There are two different parts to licensing and compliance.
The licensing portion of my job entails completing and providing all necessary license paperwork and documentation required for new license applications and renewals – at both the state and local level. Both the CRA and municipalities we operate in have specific sets of license application paperwork and requirements that must be met to successfully gain and/or renew a license. This also involves completing required enforcement, license maintenance and amendment reporting to the CRA on behalf of our Company, and communicating with our CRA inspectors on a regular basis regarding the statuses of our licensed locations.
The compliance portion entails developing and auditing company protocol, distributing protocol to our staff via assigned recording trainings and finding ways to improve the effectiveness of our protocol and training. Additionally, I work to enforce state and local rules imposed upon our licenses across all of our staff and stores, and checking in on our in store compliance through internal inspections. Compliance is ensuring we are on the right track in alignment with CRA standards and expectations.
working in licensing and compliance in the cannabis industry must be tricky. how do you navigate that?
Oh, it is honestly very challenging. I’m always learning something new, taking in all of the resources to guide me where I need to go, and these rules are the best teachers. I always come back to the acts and the rules. Those lay out everything you need to do for licensing and how you need to be compliant as a cannabis business at any license type. So to try to figure out what we need to do, it’s always referencing those rules and then as projects come our way, it’s like, okay, how do we best go about this? Let’s check the rules and make sure we know what we can and can’t do and how to tackle these things.
But I just absolutely love The Fire Station. Literally, it's why I've stuck with it. Not just because I like my job, but the culture. I wouldn't trade it for the world. I'm treated well and I enjoy what I do. I just love The Fire Station.
You are a very detailed, process oriented person. HOw is that helpful in the type of work that you do?
I have honestly always had a strong attention to detail. I was like that in school for as long as I can remember. If I was presented with a piece of information that I knew nothing about, I would do everything I could to learn everything about that topic as soon as I could. I wanted to score really high on all my tests. I was always challenging myself in school. So I built those habits, skills, and qualities throughout my education, I would say.
I just had those high expectations and standards for myself in school. That’s rolled over into my job when I’m presented with a piece of information that I know nothing about. And there’s deadlines, too, so I’m always working on a short timeline. I will dive into everything, pull all the resources I can, and read as much as I can. I do a lot of drawing, writing out pictures and cycles and how things relate until I come to a full understanding. And I think that is why I am decent in this position because that’s what this position really needs.
WHat has been most surprising to you working in the cannabis industry?
What has been most surprising to me in the cannabis industry of Michigan is the expectation the state has in the perfect writing of the rules. The rules are written as though everything’s going to work out perfectly, they were never written to include all of the downfalls and gray areas and they’re pretty vague. So you read something and you’re like, okay, well that could mean a thousand things. And you know, they don’t push out a lot of materials that provide clarification. They will not provide interpretation for you.
So what’s really surprising is that they expect licensees of all license types (processors, growers, retailers) to operate in compliance with the rules when there’s so much gray area in those rules. You might get lucky if you can get some deeper answers from some of the CRA officials but they’re really not allowed to go that far because, I’m assuming, that will fall back on them in some type of way. I think they know that it’s difficult but expect us to continue on with our best guess when we can’t get that clarification from them. Our attorneys always come in clutch and they help us out by providing an interpretation and they take a lot of time to dig deep and see what the repercussions would be.
What's your favorite part of your job?
The best part about my job is when a new Fire Station store opens. I think a lot of other departments could say the same because there is a lot of work that goes into opening a store and from all different departments. But with licensing, it’s pretty cool. It kind of kick-starts the entire thing, and sometimes the Licensing and Compliance Department gets to know about a new location before others because we’re asked to research it, which is really cool. And then with the responsibility resting on our shoulders to submit a perfect license application in the case that it’s a competitive license process in that location. It’s not always, sometimes it’s unlimited and there’s no competition. But some locations will only issue two licenses and receive 20 applicants. In that case, we have to have our application perfect and meet all the requirements, all their regulations they have set in place, and showing that in our documents that we’re submitting.
It’s really cool then at the end, even to get the license approved before building renovation or anything happens is really special. We did our job, and we did our job well. We got through the licensing process, but when the new store opens, it’s a good feeling.
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