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Hearing reveals Missouri marijuana recall details

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Jack Maritz was working at Delta Extraction, a marijuana manufacturing facility in Robertsville, in February 2023 when the company’s regular state compliance officer stopped by unannounced.The officer, Heather Bilyeu, wanted to make sure Delta had “accurate counts” in the state’s tracking database of how much THC distillate, or concentrated THC oil, they had in the building.“We weighed every jar of distillate that we had together,” Maritz, the manager of the facility and part owner, said in a hearing Wednesday. “She watched me weigh it.”Then she asked Maritz “a lot” of questions, he said, about how the company made the distillate, which is the ingredient that produces a high in edibles and vape pens.Delta’s distillate was different from other licensed manufacturers’ products in the state because it was mostly made up of what some call a “synthetic” THC — or THC that had been converted from hemp’s CBD using a heavy chemical process. Delta mixed the hemp-derived THC with a small amount of THC from marijuana grown in Missouri.It’s much less expensive to make distillate from hemp than Missouri-grown marijuana, but Delta’s consumers still paid marijuana prices.Bilyeu’s visit came the day before the new state marijuana rules went into effect on Feb. 3, 2023 — which banned the converted hemp THC practice. Maritz said Bilyeu wanted to make sure Delta had stopped making it, but she didn’t stop the company from selling about 400 liters they had weighed together.Over the next few months, that hemp-based distillate became among the top selling in the state and was added to millions of edibles and vape cartridges.“She was completely aware that we’re going to keep selling it and that it was converted material,” Maritz said. “And there was obviously no recall for health and safety after that.”For the last five months, Missouri’s cannabis industry has largely been kept in the dark about why the state suddenly issued a massive recall in August of marijuana products that contained Delta’s hemp-based distillate.In August, the state told the Administrative Hearing Commission that a July investigation uncovered Delta’s practice of using hemp-derived THC — citing several examples of distillate made as early as March 2022 when the company began operations.However, testimony and evidence revealed during this week’s appeal hearing challenging Delta’s license revocation and the product recall show for the first time that the state was aware of those examples long before the recall was issued.Throughout the three-day hearing before the commission, the state remained firm that Delta had committed “inversion,” which is where a Missouri cannabis company adds illegal marijuana products brought in from other states to their own products in order to keep their production numbers up.Brittany Kirkweg, facility compliance manager for the Division of Cannabis Regulation, said the “unregulated THC” product posed a public health threat.“We would not be doing our job as regulators if we allowed a licensee and product that is unregulated THC to be available to patients and consumers,” Kirkweg said. “Our job is to regulate licensees, but the main thing is to protect public health and safety.”
Jon Gitchoff
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Special to St. Louis Public RadioFrom left: Tanisha Patterson, Ryan Quinones and Chris LeGrand celebrate the passage of Amendment 3 in November 2022 during a watch party at the Crown Room in downtown St. Louis. 53% percent of Missouri voters signed off on the constitutional amendment legalizing recreational marijuana.
The loopholeThe hearing, which began Monday, largely focused on what Delta produced between May and July 2023.An emergency rule put in place on Feb. 3, following voters legalizing recreational marijuana, stated that any THC in marijuana products could only be derived from marijuana cultivated by a Missouri-licensed facility.However, Rachael Herndon Dunn, Delta’s chief operating office, thought she’d found a few-month loophole, she testified Tuesday — at least until the final rules went into effect on July 30.The company’s leaders believed the emergency rule didn’t prevent them from bringing in THC-A oil that had been extracted from out-of-state hemp plants — because it’s a cannabinoid that isn’t intoxicating until heated.The final rules outlawed this practice.So the company manufactured 1,100 liters of distillate of this new product, Maritz testified.During a hearing, state officials testified that THC-A is a type of THC, and there was never a loophole. Hemp-derived THC – whether chemically converted from CBD or from THC-A — is federally legal and unregulated.Bilyeu previously testified that: “We did not stop them from selling,” the distillate made prior to Feb. 3. However, the state did not give Delta permission to make new distillate from THC-A.“[Maritz] understood and stated that they were changing their process,” Bilyeu wrote in a report produced about the case. “Fast forward to now, that change involved using THC-A, as they feel, along with another facility I have, they have found a loophole.”Much of the hearing was focused on whether or not Delta had found a loophole by switching their process and using hemp-derived THC-A.Chuck Hatfield, Delta’s attorney, presented several emails showing supervisors at the Division of Cannabis Regulation stating they were unclear whether or not THC-A was actually a loophole, given that it was only specified in the final rules.Carole Iles of the Administrative Hearing Commission previously sided with the state in an Aug. 29 order. The only thing the cannabis regulating agency added to this line in the final rules, she wrote, was the clause “such as THC-A …”“We agree with the department that language added to the permanent rule … did not change the requirement of the emergency rule that THC in marijuana products could only be derived from marijuana cultivated by a Missouri-licensed cultivation facility,” the order denying a stay on Delta’s suspension states.Regarding examples the state cited in 2022, Hatfield presented emails to the commissioner showing company leaders asking regulators if the process the company was using was acceptable.A June 2022 email from Bilyeu states: “You are able to extract [hemp and marijuana] separately, and then mix.”“This was an extreme overreaction by the Division of Cannabis Regulation,” Hatfield, told The Independent Tuesday.
Rebecca Rivas
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The Missouri IndependentRichard Batenburg Jr., owner of the Colorado-based cannabis brand The Clear, said last year that he was infuriated that he was both overpaying for hemp and unknowingly deceiving his own customers who thought they were getting a pure marijuana product.
Anonymous tipDuring the hearing, Maritz testified that Delta was “never trying to hide” what they were doing.“We’re happy that we did it,” he said.However, The Independent spoke to several business owners who had no idea they were buying distillate with “synthetic” THC that Delta sold during the spring of 2023.Richard Batenburg Jr., owner of the Colorado-based cannabis brand The Clear, said last year that he was infuriated that he was both overpaying for hemp and unknowingly deceiving his own customers who thought they were getting a pure marijuana product.Batenburg was among business owners who only learned about the practice during Delta’s appeal proceedings.Documents filed by the state show that cannabis regulators received an anonymous tip on July 26, alleging that a licensed manufacturer was bringing in illegal marijuana from Oklahoma.An investigation report states that the tip cited a “suspected inversion of cannabis from Oklahoma to Noah’s Arc Foundation.” Noah’s Arc has three marijuana manufacturing licenses.That allegation was never proven to be true, Kirkweg said during her testimony on Monday.However in the course of investigating the tip, Bilyeu’s investigation report states that regulators’ attention turned to Delta Extraction for adding hemp-derived THC to its marijuana products — which the state has deemed the illegal process of inversion.“During that investigation, it was determined that [Delta Extraction], was possibly involved, due to [Delta] also receiving distillate from the same source,” according to Bilyeu’s review.In her testimony Tuesday, Bilyeu said she had a conversation with Dunn the same day the tip came in.Dunn had called her to tell Bilyeu that her team was going to make a large batch of distillate using hemp-derived THC-A, Bilyeu said. Dunn had heard Delta was under investigation so she called Bilyeu to ask if their process was under compliance.“She’s like, ‘No, we know what you’re doing. It’s fine. Others are doing it,’” Dunn said Tuesday. “It was a normal conversation. We had a pretty healthy, open, transparent relationship.”Later that day, they spoke again and Bilyeu couldn’t say if what Delta was doing was legal, both testified Tuesday.Hatfield asked Bilyeu Tuesday, “You told her as her chief compliance officer, who was there to ensure she was in compliance and to provide technical assistance, that you didn’t know what was going to happen if they ran all this product that weekend.”“I told her I didn’t know,” Bilyeu said.That weekend, the man running Delta’s distillate process, Jason Sparks, made 490 liters of distillate using the THC-A process. Dunn said the company “had no reason to think” that it couldn’t sell it after the rule changed.What is THC-A?Unlike marijuana, hemp has very little psychoactive properties naturally — which is why it was taken off the federal controlled substance list in the 2018 farm bill. But since then, businesses like Delta have been in a race to create ways to produce the most predominant psychoactive active element in marijuana, delta-9 THC, using the hemp plant.The most common way to get delta-9 THC from hemp has been a chemical conversion process from CBD, which is the more common cannabinoid in hemp.Raw marijuana flower contains a lot of THC-A, but eating raw flower won’t produce a high because it doesn’t change into delta-9 THC until a person heats it. Hemp has very little THC-A, so it takes about 90 pounds of hemp to make 1 kilo of THC-A isolate, or powder, a Florida lab expert who made the THC-A Delta used told The Independent.THC-A is extracted the same way it is from the marijuana plant as it is from the hemp plant, experts testified Wednesday.For Missouri’s marijuana industry, including hemp-derived THC — which is much cheaper — poses a threat to their livelihoods. That’s especially true because Missouri cannabis licensees must go through a rigorous and costly regulatory process — one that hemp companies don’t.However, for the Missouri hemp industry, the Delta Extraction case makes their argument for them: That hemp-derived THC is legal under federal law and it’s a safe, viable business for Missouri farmers.The hearing concluded on Wednesday afternoon.Now, both sides will have an opportunity to submit their final arguments to the commission through briefs. The commissioner must read through hundreds of pages of testimony and exhibits, so it’s unclear when a decision will be reached.
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Laclede’s Landing is moving from nightlife hub to neighborhood

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Laclede’s Landing has cycled through many identities throughout the history of St. Louis. Now, some people involved with its redevelopment in recent years hope the landing’s next one will be as a residential neighborhood.The small district tucked directly north of the Gateway Arch National Park has quietly undergone a massive redevelopment with more than $75 million pouring into the rehabilitation of many of the historic buildings at the landing.“We are starting to feel that momentum, especially in the last really 60 days. Things have drastically changed around here,” said Ryan Koppy, broker and owner of Trading Post Properties and the director of commercial property for Advantes Group.Advantes alone shouldered the rehabilitation of six of the historic buildings, which now sport a mix of apartments and retail or office space, he said. Four of those buildings are completed, and of the 119 apartments available, about 90% are filled, Koppy said.“It just shows you what kind of demand we do have for the area,” he said. “We’re separated from downtown a little bit, and for the tenants, their local park where they’re walking their dogs, it’s a national park.”
Sophie Proe
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St. Louis Public RadioInterior of the Peper Lofts at Laclede’s Landing on Aug. 16
Another 40 apartments are set to come online next year along with some retail space, Koppy said. He added he’s noticed a wide range of people who are considering and moving into the newly refinished apartments.“It’s very mixed, surprisingly,” Koppy said. “We have a lot of young professionals, maybe on their second job out of [university], we have some empty nesters too.”Part of the newfound momentum comes from a new market, the Cobblestone, and coffee shop, Brew Tulum, opening recently and bringing more foot traffic to the area, said Brandyn Jones, executive director of the Laclede Landing Neighborhood Association. She added that more apartments are set to come online within the next few months.“We have a great riverfront area here and so there are plans in the works to activate those spaces, bring people in,” she said.That could be more daytime events, like a farmers market, music festivals (one of which is happening this weekend) or just bringing in food trucks to Katherine Ward Burg Garden, Jones said. It’s a departure from the identity the district held a few decades ago as a hub for nightlife and entertainment.“That’s part of what connects so many people to Laclede’s Landing,” Jones said. “It’s important to tell the story of where we’re evolving. It won’t be what it was in the same exact way, but it will still be fun, and it can be fun early morning, midday or late night.”It’s a view shared by Koppy.“It’s grown up, it’s a bit mature,” he said. “We’re not going to have 3 a.m. bars here anymore because we have residents here.”Koppy added that Advantes is joined by other developers working to rehabilitate buildings in the district.“We all work in unison,” he said. “If I get a call and [a client is] asking for something and maybe the square foot doesn’t really match up with what I have available, but I know it matches up over there, they’re getting a very warm welcome and introduction.”
Sophie Proe
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St. Louis Public RadioRyan Koppy looks out the window of Brew Tulum Specialty Coffee Experience on Aug. 16 at the Cobblestone on Laclede’s Landing in downtown St. Louis.
This push toward making Laclede’s Landing a residential neighborhood also comes alongside broader conversations about the future of downtown St. Louis more generally as it looks to move away from a dependence on office space. While the city as a whole continues to lose population, downtown added about 1,700 people between 2010 and 2020, according to U.S. Census data.“It’s been wonderful timing to have all that going on, that stress that you’re not just in downtown to work has been critical to part of this rejuvenation and energy down here,” Jones said. “Sometimes people forget Laclede’s Landing is part of downtown, really the original downtown.”And success in the small district could spread beyond its small confines and potentially serve as a model for success, Koppy added.“My idea is, if we could get all the great things of St. Louis coming in through here, we can eventually spread that,” he said. “We understand we can’t change the whole world, but we’ll just make the effort to try and change the world around us.”
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St. Louis barbecue festival Q in the Lou canceled

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The largest barbecue competition and tasting festival in St. Louis, Q in the Lou, has been canceled. The event was planned for Sept. 6-8, but organizers decided to cancel it due to poor ticket sales and insufficient corporate sponsorship.The traveling festival had low attendance in Denver last week, said Sean Hadley, a festival organizer.“We made the tough decision to cancel Q in the Lou,” said Hadley. “We’re seeing a lack of support … it’s just not there.”The traveling event first came to St. Louis in 2015 and drew hundreds of people to downtown St. Louis for barbecue, live music and a “major party.”“It shut down out of the blue … I’ve gone every year,” said Scott Thomas, local chef and food blogger. “It’s brilliant. You could take a tour of some really amazing barbecue restaurants and competition barbecue guys all in one place.”In a late July news conference, city officials touted Q in the Lou as a significant tourism draw and a boost for downtown revitalization.“Bringing a signature national festival back to downtown St. Louis … is making us stronger,” Greater St. Louis Inc. CEO Jason Hall said then.Less than a month later, ticket holders from every festival stop learned they’d be refunded. On Monday, organizers privatized the Q in the Lou website and deleted its social media accounts.Conner Kerrigan, a spokesperson for Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office, said city officials are disappointed the festival won’t be back this year.“St. Louis knows how to throw a festival … bringing people together to celebrate our culture is one of the things we do best as a city,” Kerrigan said in a statement. “Should Q in the Lou try to come back next year or any year after that, they’ll have the support of the Mayor Jones administration.”
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Alton’s Jacoby Arts Center likely to relocate permanently

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The Jacoby Arts Center, a staple of Alton for many in the Metro East community, will likely permanently move out of its downtown building at the end of September.Its departure and relocation from the historic building that the arts center has called home for the past 20 years has created a tense situation for not only the arts center’s supporters but also the local development company working to revitalize Alton’s downtown that owns the building.“It’s an unfortunate situation,” said Chad Brigham, the chief legal and administrative officer with AltonWorks, the real estate company owned by another prominent local attorney working to develop the town. “I wish there wasn’t misunderstanding and disappointment in the community. It’s difficult sometimes to clarify that.”When news of the likely departure spread in June via a letter from the Jacoby Arts Center to its supporters, an outcry on social media quickly followed. Some assumed it would be the end of the arts center.“There’s a lot of feelings right now that I think are more about the building itself than there are about the Jacoby Arts Center,” said Valerie Hoven, vice president and treasurer of the nonprofit arts center’s board.For supporters of the Jacoby, moving from the building and likely never returning will be a sad affair. Exactly what’s next for the arts center remains unclear. However, Jacoby board members believe this will not be the end of the organization. It will likely look different though.
Sophie Proe
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St. Louis Public RadioThe Jacoby Arts Center earlier this month in downtown Alton
Sophie Proe
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St. Louis Public RadioThe Alton-based Jacoby Arts Center features more than 75 St. Louis-area artists and their work.
The history of the buildingFirst dubbed the Madison County Arts Council, the nonprofit arts center renamed itself after the Jacoby family gave it the current building in 2004. AltonWorks founder John Simmons purchased the Jacoby Building in September 2018, according to property records from the county.Managing the large building, at 627 E. Broadway, became too expensive for the Jacoby Arts Center. In 2018, the organization approached Simmons to purchase it, said Dennis Scarborough, a past president of the board and a downtown business owner.“Of course, it sounded really, really good,” Scarborough said of Simmons’ purchase. “He took over the insurance, property taxes, all those kinds of things that were really, really getting into our budget, and he rented it to us at a fair price.”The two parties entered into a lease agreement initially for five years. Since then, Simmons has spent more than $1 million in upkeep, taxes, insurance and more on the building. The lease has been extended twice until the end of September this year.Over the six years, Jacoby paid $1,500 per month, which covered a portion of the utilities.“It’s been wonderfully generous of AltonWorks,” Hoven said.Because the building is aging and needs repairs, Brigham with AltonWorks and those connected to the arts center have long known the Jacoby Arts Center would need to relocate — at least temporarily.
Renovations on the Jacoby building will begin this fall. They’ll include modernizing the aging building, repairing the old elevator and putting in apartments on the second and third floors.
News of the likely departure and controversyRenovations will begin this fall. They’ll include modernizing the aging building, repairing the old elevator and putting in apartments on the second and third floors.In May, it became clear that a preliminary proposal for the arts center to return to the building after renovations finished in 2026 would not work for them, Hoven said.She estimates the first floor and basement of the Jacoby Arts Building span roughly 20,000 square feet.
Chad Brigham is a business and legal adviser for AltonWorks.
AltonWorks’ initial idea floated to the arts center would only provide 2,553 square feet, according to both Hoven and Brigham. While the board calculated the price for the new space to be at least triple the current payment, Brigham said there was never a specific price discussed.“No discussion in terms of actual rent price,” he said.AltonWorks didn’t make a specific rent offer because the organization doesn’t even know itself, Brigham said.In addition to cash from John Simmons, there will be loans, tax increment financing and state tax credits to cover the $20 million in building renovations. The entities financing the cost of renovations will also help determine the rent when the construction is complete, Brigham said.Regardless, the price required to return will be too much for the arts center to pay, Hoven said. Also, the organization would like to maintain the many programs it offers to the community — a rentable event space, a dark room and a clay studio, for example — in the future.“For us to really meet the needs of the community and be sustainable, we need a space where we can offer some of those programs — the artists’ shop, and other spaces that offer some kind of income as well — so that we can continue to give money back to the community,” she said.AltonWorks offered at least two other locations as possible alternatives from their vast stock of buildings along Broadway to house the arts center during the roughly 18 months of construction. Those alternatives came with similar deals requiring the Jacoby to cover only utilities, Brigham said.“We did put in a great deal of work behind the scenes in trying to find an interim solution,” Brigham said. “We wanted to find a place for them to go, where it was easy for them to continue programming, whether it’s 100% of it or some portion of it, that would work for them.”Initially, the arts center hoped to keep the basement during the renovations, Hoven said. When it became clear the preliminary offer to return was for much less space than the arts center anticipated, the letter to the community was sent.“The letter that came out was merely showing our surprise,” Hoven said. “Don’t misinterpret it as panic. Don’t misinterpret it as desperation.”
Sophie Proe
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St. Louis Public RadioA smorgasbord of radios are displayed at the Jacoby Arts Center in Alton.
The commentary on social media was passionate. Some critics of AltonWorks said the organization has good intentions but hasn’t executed those plans. Others said Jacoby hasn’t planned well enough for the future.For Brigham and the AltonWorks team, some of the criticism has been disappointing.“I thought that there were some decent solutions. Were they perfect? No, but they were very, I thought, very good solutions,” he said. “And the fact that it has come to the point that it is right now is a bit hurtful.”AltonWorks remains committed to the arts, Brigham said. John Simmons remains one the largest donors of the Jacoby Arts Center, Hoven and Brigham said.“I don’t think there’s ever been a question of our support of that organization — of our affinity for that organization,” Brigham said. “While some of the events were unfortunate, some of them were encouraging. The entire community rallied around the Jacoby Arts Center. That’s a good thing. It’s a good thing to have a love for the arts like that in a downtown community.”Sara McGibany, the executive director of Alton Main Street, an organization aimed at preserving the town, said AltonWorks should be commended for its vision. In many ways, her organization and AltonWorks share a vision for a thriving downtown.Even though AltonWorks hosts public meetings, McGibany believes the current situation lacks true community engagement.“We really think that if AltonWorks can get past some of the communication hurdles — and harness the community’s passion and shift to more of a bottom-up decision-making process that centers on community input — then we can turn around the growing sentiment of distrust that’s happening now,” McGibany said.Scarborough, the past board president and downtown business owner, echoed the praise for Simmons and his support of the Jacoby Arts Center. With the Jacoby likely moving, the future looks bleak, though.“It’s a community arts center that does a lot of good work,” Scarborough said. “The community is going to suffer, and they’re going to be missed by the community if they’re not there.”
Eric Lee
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St. Louis Public RadioShalanda Young, director of the federal Office of Management and Budget, talks to Illinois U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski, D-Springfield, during a tour of a construction project by AltonWorks last April in Alton. AltonWorks, who is building the LoveJoy Apartment Complex is receiving over $1 million in federal funding.
What does the future hold?AltonWorks will continue forging ahead with its ambitious plans to revitalize Alton. The organization hopes to conclude construction on the Wedge Innovation Center, which will have a restaurant, retail and co-working space, this fall. Lucas Row, a mix of apartments and retail space, is scheduled to be completed next spring.The remainder of the arts and innovation district, currently named after the Jacoby, will also move forward.“I believe in two years it’s going to be a much different place,” Brigham said of Alton. “It’s going to be thriving. It’s going to be new businesses, new tenants — and it’s going to be a nice proof of concept for what you can do in a small community like that.”The Jacoby board recently formed a strategic planning committee. Its task: figuring out what’s next for the arts center. The committee will reevaluate what space the Jacoby needs, what programs it wants to offer to the community and how they want to make that a reality.Keeping the arts center is essential for board members like Hoven. In her experience, it’s been a place where local aspiring artists get their start.“Art is one of the only ways to show your true authentic self,” Hoven said. “And there’s more people than I realized who do not get that opportunity every day.”The Jacoby will shut its doors to pack over the next month. Hoven said she’s optimistic the board will have concrete plans by the end of September when their lease officially ends.“Alton is such a fabulous and supportive community,” she said. “We still have lots of great options, so that the Jacoby Arts Center will continue to thrive in Alton and beyond.”
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