Committee reviews small-business regulatory changes: holiday licensing, remote-work rule and hemp rule transfer

The finance committee heard a grouping of business-regulatory and commerce items carried in Articles 3 and 6 that the administration described as small, practical fixes aimed at removing friction for small businesses.

Administration witnesses said Article 3 would repeal an obsolete municipal licensing requirement for martial-arts instructors, add remote work to the list of exempt residential uses so municipalities cannot treat routine remote work as a business requiring local regulation, and transfer hemp regulation from the Department of Business Regulation to the Cannabis Control Commission. The commission would retain voting authority even if certain administrative duties were delegated to a hearing officer.

Article 6 would repeal most municipal holiday-retail licensing requirements (keeping Christmas and Thanksgiving exceptions), allow cancellation of health-club and dating-service contracts by email, extend several small-business program sunsets (including the small-business assistance revolving-loan program and the Wavemaker Fellowship) and make the small-business assistance program permanent by removing the sunset. Commerce officials told the panel the small-business assistance program provides revolving loans (up to $750,000) and that about $1.6 million remains available for loans; they said the program repays and recycles funds into new loans.

Members asked for implementation details (for example, how municipalities currently exercise home-occupation authority) and for the administration to provide text clarifying the hemp transfer and delegation provisions. Witnesses said the hemp change implements a recommendation from the 2022 cannabis act and that public comment on related regulations had ended.

No formal committee action was taken. The administration said it will provide statutory language and additional implementation notes if requested.