Senate passes CBD bill to restrict products sold at Virginia farmers markets, loosen fees

Proposed legislation would lessen the fees required by CBD sellers to operate at pop-up events but also introduce restrictions on what kinds of CBD products could be sold there. (BizSense file)

Legislation that would tweak how Virginia CBD sellers operate at farmers markets is working its way through the General Assembly.

The Senate last week approved a bill that would loosen registration requirements for retail sales of hemp products at farmers markets but also restrict what could be sold at the events.

Currently, businesses are required to pay an annual fee of $1,000 per retail location to legally sell CBD products. Senate Bill 1438 would change existing regulations to allow hemp sellers to carry over the permission secured for the operation of a “primary” retail location, such as a brick-and-mortar store, and apply it to the company’s operations at “temporary events” like farmers markets.

“This bill would allow brick-and-mortar stores to sell at festivals, fairs, farmers markets and other temporary locations without having to pay a $1,000 fee for an additional location at each event,” Liam Fischer, a staffer for bill patron Democratic Sen. Saddam Salim, said in an email. Sen. Jennifer Boysko, also a Democrat, is the bill’s chief patron.

The bill would prohibit the sale of hemp products with any amount of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, at the pop-up events. THC is the chemical found in cannabis plants that produces the high associated with marijuana consumption, and it’s common for CBD and hemp products to include small amounts of THC. That restriction was not in the original language of the bill and was added while the legislation was still in committee.

The bill would require that a retailer provide 14-day notice to the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which regulates the hemp industry, of the retailer’s plans to sell products at a pop-up event.

Radhika Murari, the owner of Reston-based CBD store OmBaked, said the pending bill would make it financially easier for her business to operate at pop-up events because it would lessen the fees levied on the business. Sellers of hemp products intended to be smoked or ingested have been required to register with the state and pay the fee since November.

“What this bill would do is allow us to participate in farmers markets and temporary events under this $1,000 fee (paid for the store),” Murari told lawmakers during a January committee meeting. “The current (law) says we have to pay $1,000 for every location, which is a huge financial burden and is not possible to bear for a small business like mine.”

Deputy Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry Travis Rickman spoke in opposition to the bill as a representative of the Youngkin administration during last month’s committee meeting.

Rickman said that regulators have frequently found that brick-and-mortar CBD stores are in violation of the state’s relatively new hemp laws, and that loosening the license requirement for pop-up vendors would make enforcing state law more difficult.

“We’ve been doing inspections at brick-and-mortar locations around the commonwealth and we’ve seen a lot of variability and many violations,” Rickman said. “Allowing this to have 14 days’ notification will make it extremely hard for the agency to regulate, because you’re going to move all around and only need one actual license to operate.”

Rickman said that the bill’s distinction between hemp products that can and cannot be sold at pop-up events would be confusing. He also said it is currently possible for CBD sellers to pay a single registration fee for a particular farmers market or event and use that permission to legally operate multiple days at the same event.

In 2023, lawmakers changed the definition of what types of hemp products are legal to sell in Virginia. Currently, products with a total THC concentration of no greater than 0.3 percent are considered legal hemp products, and products also must have no more than 2 milligrams of total THC per package unless the total package has at least a 25:1 ratio of CBD to THC.

Cannabis products with higher THC levels are considered marijuana. Such products are illegal to sell in Virginia except by a handful of government-sanctioned companies that operate in the state’s medical program. Recreational marijuana is legal to possess and consume but illegal to sell in Virginia.

The CBD bill passed the Senate in a bipartisan 31-9 vote. The bill is pending a review by a House of Delegates committee, and if the bill passes in both houses it’ll go to Gov. Glenn Youngkin for final consideration.