One of Vermont’s rarest kinds of cannabis licenses is changing hands.

Noah Fishman and Marlena Tucker-Fishman, owners of Zenbarn Farms cannabis shop in Waterbury, are buying an “integrated" license from Curaleaf, a large Massachusetts-based cannabis company that operates in more than a dozen states.

Only three integrated licenses exist in Vermont. They allow companies access to every type of license, including growing, wholesale, testing, manufacturing and retail.



In Vermont, Curaleaf did business as Vermont Patients Alliance, which had a medical and adult-use cannabis store in Montpelier, a medical store in Bennington, and a grow facility in Middlesex. A Curaleaf spokesperson confirmed the sale but did not comment further.

Vermont law allows companies only one adult-use, also known as recreational, retail cannabis license, so Fishman said he and his wife turned the Montpelier store into a medical-only outlet. Their store in Waterbury, where the couple also own a restaurant and music venue called Zenbarn, will remain open, as will the medical shop in Bennington. Fishman said no layoffs are expected.

“We're feeling really good; optimistic about the future,” Fishman said. “All our staff are super into the product and the mission. So now that we get to talk about, ‘What strains are we going to grow?’ and ‘What products are we going to make?’ — everyone's really excited about that.”

Fishman said the sale, terms of which he wouldn’t disclose, included a solar-powered, “state-of-the-art” sustainable grow facility in Middlesex that encompasses two greenhouse-like structures with capacity for up to 8,000 square feet of cannabis canopy. He said the setup will produce “the power and quality of sun-grown cannabis with all of the control and consistency of indoor.”

“You want to, like, hang out there,” Fishman said of the operation.

He said the couple are dedicated to serving medical patients, a segment of the industry that has struggled since the state’s adult-use market opened in 2022. And he said they have a plan for a cannabis workforce development program that would cater to people who have been impacted by the war on drugs or have barriers to employment. The couple would use the Middlesex facility as a campus to teach people about cultivation, manufacturing and sales.

“What we've been wanting to do for the last several years is to get people in there to learn and then go off and either get a job with us or somebody else in the industry in Vermont or anywhere in the country,” Fishman said. “There's a lot of good jobs available.”

It’s the second time since Vermont’s legal adult-use cannabis market opened that an integrated license has changed hands. iAnthus, a New York City-based company that owned Grassroots Vermont in Brandon, sold its license last year to Lee Stowell, a local entrepreneur.

The third is owned by Toronto-based SLANG Worldwide, which runs the Ceres Collaborative cannabis shop in Burlington, as well as medical cannabis dispensaries in South Burlington and Brattleboro.

“It is nice to see these very specialized licenses … revert back to Vermont ownership,” said James Pepper, chair of the Vermont Cannabis Control Board, which regulates the industry.