[SPEAKER_02]: All right, good afternoon, everyone. My name is Brian Keith, one of the principals at En Route Home Delivery. Tonight, we are joined by fellow co-founders, Joanne Keith and Rokia Chowdhury. Tonight, we'll be discussing our proposal for a cannabis delivery operator for En Route Home Delivery to be sited at 151 Mystic Ave in Medford, Massachusetts. Our mission statement speaks to who we are and is a true expression of our values. EnRoute's mission is to build a community-conscious adult-use cannabis business that engages, serves, and benefits members of benefits communities of color and other disadvantaged communities through financial succession and social responsibility. EnRoute Home Delivery Medford is 100% minority-owned and minority-homeless. Our team members are members of the City of Boston Equity Program as well as the State of Massachusetts Social Equity Program and administered by the Cannabis Control Commission. We are excited about our proposal, Medford, because when we join a community, we truly become active members of the community. In addition to being a member, a devoted mom, Joanne is a chair of the Ward 8 Democratic Committee in Boston, a member of the Massport CAC, a member of a patient and family advocacy committee for a local NICU. Salman is a member of the Central Square Business Association as well as Roxbury Main Streets Organization. I hold position of Board Chair, excuse me, Chair of the Board of Trustees for a local charter school, a member of Roxbury Main Streets Board, a board member for the UUUM in Roxbury, and until recently handled aircraft logistics for a Massachusetts-based private jet company. Salman Rokia, our husband and wife team, excuse me, Salman Ruki, our husband and wife team with more than 22 years of local business ownership experience. Their portfolio includes Shanti, which are three full-service Indian restaurants in Dorchester, Roslindale, and Kendall Square, the Dudley Cafe, which is a coffee shop in Roxbury's Nubian Square, and 250-plus real estate developments and investments. Shanti Express, a fourth Indian restaurant, is a delivery-only kitchen concept not dissimilar from our proposal this evening. Together we have 20 plus years as small business owners, 30 plus years as community advocates, 16 plus years in transportation fleet logistics, expertise in areas of retail operations, luxury marketing, regulated industries, and five plus years of planning and research in local cannabis space. and in the final stages of opening a cannabis retail establishment at 331 Newberry Street. We also have a post-committee agreement with the City of Boston for a delivery operator, just as we're proposing this evening. We've had the pleasure of working through both the City of Boston licensing, permitting and zoning process for our adult use cannabis establishment approved on Newberry Street. We are nearly complete with the CCC process at this location and are awaiting approval of our final license. You will see in this slide before and after images of the initial state of our facility, truly creating a cannabis boutique in the retail heart of the City of Boston. These next images display our family friendly participation in open Newberry over six Sundays this summer. Open Newberry is an event where the entirety of Newberry street is closed to vehicular traffic and becomes a pedestrian way. On September 25th, we invited Gropal Creamery, a black-owned ice cream shop from Boston's Dorchester neighborhood to hand out complimentary ice cream to passers-by. We're excited to, of course, compensate Gropal Creamery for their work, but also give them exposure to the foot traffic and disposable income found on Newberry Street. Uplifting small businesses is integral to everything we do. A delivery operator is a business that receives wholesale cannabis from licensed marijuana cultivators and marijuana product manufacturers. The wholesale product is stored in a secured vault on site at 151 Mystic Ave until it is securely transferred from the vault to one of En Route's three secure all-electric vehicles for delivery to customers. Here you'll be able to see a sketch of our proposed interior layout. This may show very small on your screen, so after the presentation, if there is interest, we can revisit this slide and make it larger, as well as any other slides that you may see this evening. Regarding delivery, EnRoute delivers to customers who are 21 years of age or older at their home residence or to licensed marijuana operators. Deliveries to dorms, government housing, hotels or similar are strictly prohibited. To ensure that all requirements for delivery are met, prior to placing an order for delivery, all customers are required to preregister and submit proof of age and residence for verification. Age is verified again on camera at time of delivery. All delivery vehicles will be staffed with at least two employees, and during delivery, the vehicles will not be left alone at any time. It is important to note that there is absolutely no public component to this operation. There will be no registers on site, nor will there be any customers or members of the public coming into the facility at any time. Our last delivery must be in the customer's hands by 9 p.m., or it will be delivered the following day. With regards to transportation, we will be a fully self-contained site. As a transportation business, we will be looking closely at how best to optimize our delivery schedules around peak commuter times. There will be no delivery vehicles allowed to park along Mystic Ave or the surrounding streets, and we will be employing GPS technology to track all vehicles, ensuring all vans safe entry into and out of our facility. Sentry located on route will have the ability to deliver with speed across the City of Medford. safely, of course. Our hours of operation are 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. And then on the next slide, we will offer 40 state certified employees, 12 drivers for the three delivery vehicles that we'll have, and that's two drivers per vehicle. 28 warehouse dispatch and security positions where we hope to employ local BIPOC, veteran, and LGBTQ individuals. We plan on creating those 40 jobs at Medford with a preference for Medford residents. Our hope is that we're hiring in such a local manner that our employees will have the opportunity to walk to work. We estimate a payroll budget that will see employees averaging a salary of $75,000, well above what is considered a living wage. Employees will have access to full medical, dental, vision benefits as well as a 401k. Additionally, we have created a profit sharing program that employees will have access to based on the success of the location. We will encourage employee growth and promote skills that will be transferable beyond the cannabis industry. We will touch on this again later in the presentation, but it is important for us to note that we have signed a labor peace agreement with UFCW, local 1445 to ensure employee voice is always paramount. As mentioned previously, we will use a small to midsize fleet of three all-electric vehicles. We are excited to bring an all-electric cannabis delivery fleet to Medford, which means zero exhaust, zero emissions, and zero engine noises, which ensures we are always respectful to our neighbors. Each vehicle used to deliver products will be outfitted with the highest standards of security, including a mobile vault system, GPS tracking, and a two-person crew. The vehicle is never left alone with product inside. Each vehicle will have an estimated range of up to 250 to 300 miles on a single charge. A fleet and asset management software will ensure efficient usage. En Route will offer parking on site for all delivery vehicles and 15 employee parking spaces. We thought it was important to show you the types of vehicles we will be operating. As this is a warehouse model, our security protocols will be focused on ensuring only employees have access to this site and that we run an efficient operation with minimum impact to the surrounding neighborhood. With continued dialogue with the surrounding neighbors, neighborhood associations and Medford police, we will add state-of-the-art security cameras to ensure the security of the site. All cameras will be shared live and in realtime with the Medford police should they wish access. At our Newberry Street adult use location, all doors are access controlled. We have 65 cameras, 58 interior and 7 exterior, and all systems are redundant. With all the security, it is also important to us that our facility does not appear to be a prison or subtype of industrial facility. We will maintain the existing facade and will ensure that our operation blends in to the fabric of the neighborhood. On this slide, you will see a five-year projection of revenues for enroute given a certain number of inputs. We have used a capacity model which we feel will be more efficient and will lead to less vehicles on the road on a continuous basis. This slide also shows the projected HCA pay to the City of Medford. I'm confident there will be questions on this slide, so we can absolutely circle back here during Q&A. As we are a business that does not see customers in person on site, we will create a Good Neighbor Pledge, which will be signed by all employees. This pledge will ensure that our employees are held accountable and fully respect the community that has invited our operations. The pledge will state that employees will not smoke cigarettes in public areas, will not loiter, will keep noise to a minimum, and will not park illegally. We will work with residents and the city to add this to this pledge. Failure to adhere to this pledge will be considered an offense worthy of termination. In addition to the 0 to 3% discretionary impact tax, which will be directed to the city of Medford as defined in our HCA, we plan to work with the city of Medford to fund a grant program. This program will be administered by a board of residents, business owners, and nonprofit leaders from the Medford community who will determine what worthy causes will receive the funds. Our profit sharing program is unique to En Route and our sister company, Rooted In. we will profit share with our employees based on company success. As you can see, employees are important to us, and ensuring they can afford to live, work, play, and own in our communities is very important. We've created an employee home buyer program, which you can see details on the screen. There will be an effort to monitor health impacts on the neighborhood, and as parents ourselves, we will monitor any impact our presence may have on the local youth population. We will work with the Medford Health Department on ways to combat the burden of hard drugs and opiate abuse. In consultation with the Medford Health Department, the mayor's office, and local health care leaders, we will develop a fund which will be directed to increase positive outcomes to those working to recover from substance abuse disorder. As you can see, and as I mentioned previously on route is 100% personal of color own and 50% of its structure is owned by women. We created an investment model at rooted in. Starting with our mission as our guide, our greatest differentiator is our investment team and our approach to building generational wealth for communities of color. We want to bring cannabis business to our community that are owned and operated by residents of color. We have developed a unique investment model which works to give disenfranchised communities a seat at the table at the ground floor of this burgeoning industry. We will hire members of the local community with a focus on those with past cannabis infractions on their record. 5% of local equity will be set aside for our employees. We will go into more detail later. We pledge to be good neighbors, give back through grants and monitor and remedy any adverse health impacts. And as you can see here on this slide, we've had many meaningful conversations with members of the neighborhood and the community. We've garnered nearly 50 letters of support and have proudly signed a labor peace agreement with UFCW Local 1445. We've also engaged with the local chapter of the National Civil Rights Organization for their support. So you can see right here, this is just an overview of the presentation so far. We're a community conscious cannabis establishment. Our investment model is built to create generational wealth in our communities. Our employees are important to us as far as offering them a living wage, profit sharing, as well as benefits. And we want to make sure that we're giving back to the community with improved safety, local jobs, as well as grants that come from our operations. With that, I will close, I will stop sharing my screen, turn on my camera, and open the stage for first applause, of course, but then questions. Or no applause, if that's okay too. And you can raise your hand or just raise your hand physically or raise your hand through the app. And I'll just call on people in the order that I see them raising their hand. I've got Gabriel Camacho and then Kevin McGaffigan.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi, Keith. I just want to say that was a great presentation. And I want to highlight a few things and not to be repetitive. en route is an equity applicant 100%. And you're also trying to hire people that have been adversely affected by the so called war on drugs. And also the very fact that your company reached out to a union to get a labor peace agreement. And we know your commitment is to give decent wages to workers, decent benefits, but you went the extra mile and went to our union to get union representation. And I just want to say that Medford will be extremely proud to have Enroute be part of one of its responsible corporate citizens. Thank you very much.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you. I apologize. I just saw the note about my volume. Is it better? OK. Thank you. Sorry about that. Kevin McGaffigan.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, hi, Brian. My name is Kevin McGaffigan. I'm the service and director of Local 1445, and I happen to be a lifelong resident of the city of Medford on that. And just seeing the proposals given back to the community, the concern about the park, and which is always an issue, as you know, in different areas and all that stuff. And I think it's just, I mean, it looks like a great program. I'm glad I'm fully in support of it. You know, as a resident, I think giving back to the community, I just thought of a lot of good things that some companies don't, and contacting a union, which, you know, will give the city an added step of protection, knowing some of these companies that come in, example, Amazon, they come in and do kind of what they want, really. They're so big. Here, you're willing to work with the community, have union jobs, good paying jobs, especially costs of living in Medford high, as you know. So I just think it's a pretty, I like the proposal very much and I'm in support of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, appreciate it. Hands for additional questions or comments. I've got Brenda Breed and then iPad.
[eytfxLwMk5s_SPEAKER_04]: OK, hi, I'm Brenda Breed. I live at 19 Crescent Street just around the corner from the proposed location. I mean, your presentation is wonderful and it's Sounds like you're really trying to be really responsible. I just had a couple, I just had a question, I guess, about what exactly it is that you do. Like, are you going to be processing marijuana on your property or you're just like repackaging things to distribute to people who order online?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I would say even less than that. So everything that we receive will be fully packaged. basically ready to distribute to customers. So there won't be any loose product on our site. Everything will be fully packaged. So when I say less than what you described, basically if someone orders two items, we would basically be taking those two items off the shelf, putting them in a bag and then delivering those items. So there won't be any, you know, packing of marijuana or rolling of cigarettes or anything like that. It was simply, it's a distribution center, it's a warehouse. You know, think about Amazon without the big money, like Kevin was describing.
[eytfxLwMk5s_SPEAKER_04]: Hopefully better jobs, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly, exactly. So we're just taking things off the shelf that are delivered to our facility, fully packaged, and then delivering it to the end user.
[eytfxLwMk5s_SPEAKER_04]: Okay. And what the other businesses that are there right now, are they going to stay in that building? Or how will that work with your security?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep. So we're not, we're not occupying the entire building. We're only occupying a section of the building that's currently vacant. So any businesses that are currently there, no one is being displaced by our presence at the site. And if you have a site, the site has plenty of parking on site for the parking right now is currently, you know, I would say less than 50% utilized right now. So there's still plenty of parking available for everyone that
[eytfxLwMk5s_SPEAKER_04]: No, I was just wondering like what you have a separate your own entrance separate from the other businesses like how I just was wondering how that works in terms of security.
[SPEAKER_02]: yep so our employees would have their own entrance into the building and then our side of the building is basically you know separated from all the other side. What we're planning on doing is, you know, when we refit the building, you know, there are certain security protocols that we have to follow in order to make the business, in order to make the section of the building that we're using secure for cannabis per the state's regulations. So that will all take place after, you know, if we are able to site there.
[Unidentified]: Okay. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you. Um, iPad, I'm sure that's not your name, but that's what I see. So, so I'm going with, uh, Hey, where are you?
[SPEAKER_03]: We good. There we are. My name is Nick. Uh, resident of Medford here. Uh, business owner. I heard about this project a while ago. I just want to show up and show support. Like I personally, I work until eight o'clock at night, almost every night. I love that you guys be doing later deliveries. I think it's fantastic. I think the tax revenue for the city is going to be fantastic. I just listened to the whole presentation. You know, from resident and a business owner in the city, I had nothing but support for this. I think it's great. Everything you guys, the presentation, I just want to be someone that shows up and says, let's go.
[Unidentified]: Thank you. I appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, Nick. All right. So any additional hands? for questions or comments. We have the room for the whole hour, so we can. So, okay, so it's 5.58 now. The presentation is complete, and I'm not seeing any additional questions. I'll hang for another two minutes until 6 p.m. And if we haven't had any additional questions by that time, I'll say that we're just going to end the meeting. But I'm happy to, sorry, go ahead, please, please.
[eytfxLwMk5s_SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I just was wondering, what is the next step in your process?
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure. So the next step for us is to, um, you know, we have this meeting, um, we'll, we'll send the copy of the meeting to, um, the city of Medford's economic department. Um, they'll review it. Um, they have a board, the cannabis advisory committee, um, they'll review it and make a recommendation to the mayor, um, whether or not to issue us a, what's called a host community agreement. The host community agreement is basically what defines our entity's relationship with the city of Medford. It'll determine things like the percentage of the tax revenue that they have a discretion of between zero and 3%, where they can tax to go back to, it's called an impact fee. Basically our perceived impact on the community, they can tax it between zero and 3%, So that'll basically outline what that tax is, it'll outline hours of operation that the mayor approves, and it'll outline basically any other details that are placed on us, any other restrictions or what have you that are placed on our operation or on our license. So it'll go to the Cannabis Advisory Committee of Medford who makes a recommendation to the mayor.
[eytfxLwMk5s_SPEAKER_04]: Okay. And then like the permitting and all that stuff happens down the road.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so the building, I believe we would still need to go through a zoning change, I believe, or we might be settled on zoning. I'd have to double check with, you know, where that stands. But if there is zoning, we would have to go to Medford Zoning Board and get approval there. But that might be settled already. I can't say that for certain. But once it's approved, then we would be able to, you know, start construction. Um, we, it was in the slide, we anticipate opening, um, probably, you know, within about 14 or so months. Um, so we're anticipating winter of 23. Um, you know, if all, if all goes well, um, we would probably be opening in winter of 23. We still have to, um, if the city of Medford approves us, then we would also have to go in front of the cannabis control commission at the state level. Who, um, performs, you know, investigations and confirms that our building meets all of the standards and criteria that they've set forth as far as security, safety, impact, and things like that.
[eytfxLwMk5s_SPEAKER_04]: OK. And is it possible to get a copy of your presentation?
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure. Yeah, that's not a problem.
[eytfxLwMk5s_SPEAKER_04]: OK.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would just, if you could put your, send me your email in the chat if you don't want to send it to everyone, and I can send you a copy of it.
[eytfxLwMk5s_SPEAKER_04]: OK, great. Thanks.
[Unidentified]: Thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
[Unidentified]: Thank you for hanging out and asking questions.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, so with that, once I have Brenda's email, I will go and end the meeting.
[Unidentified]: All right, I see it right here. I'm just going to copy.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, so I've got your email, so you'll see an email from me later tonight with a copy of the presentation. And with that, if there's no other questions, I'm going to adjourn the meeting. All right, thank you, everyone, for your time. I will give you back your half hour or 90 minutes, whatever it was. Please have a good evening. Thank you for coming out.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you, everyone. Yeah, thank you, Keith.