Vermont regulators plan to revoke the license of one of the state’s most successful cannabis cultivators, alleging that the owners ran an off-the-books grow operation and, when confronted, lied about it and destroyed evidence.
The owners of Forbins Finest, a Barre-based indoor grower, must pay a $60,000 fine and are banned from participating in all aspects of Vermont’s licensed cannabis marketplace. That means Nicholas Mattei and his wife, Angela Payette, must also relinquish their ownership stakes in a manufacturing license and their cannabis retail shop, Forbins Reserve, in downtown Barre.
“Tolerating willful provision of false information and concealment of evidence is unfair to rule-abiding licensees, and it makes licensing regulation untenable,” the Vermont Cannabis Control Board wrote in its May 15 ruling. “A licensee that will not be candid cannot be regulated, and a licensee that cannot be regulated cannot hold a license.”
The 17-page ruling says Forbins’ grow license is suspended immediately. The board’s decision does include a provision that would allow the owners to avoid full revocation if, by November 16, they “present a credible accounting of relevant events and a corrective action plan that, in the Board’s judgment, would enable the Board to have confidence in Respondent’s prospective candor and compliance.”
In essence, the board wrote, the owners had violated a core tenet of Vermont’s cannabis industry: trust.
“A fair and functional cannabis licensing system cannot operate on a catch-me-if-you-can basis,” the ruling says. “The Cannabis Control Board has neither the authority nor the resources to play cops-and-robbers with its licensees.”
According to the order, Mattei and Payette’s other two licenses would not be affected if they present a plan to divest from them.
In a series of text messages with Seven Days, Mattei denied allegations of illicit activity and said he and his partners would appeal.
“Angela and I in the meantime are going to step away from the company, at least temporarily during the appeal process to allow the company, its partners and employees to continue operations,” he wrote.
“Our products are still available throughout the state and the retail store is open,” Mattei added.
Tim Fair, an attorney representing Forbins’ owners, said they would pursue an administrative appeal and take it all the way to the Vermont Supreme Court, if necessary.
If the decision stands, it would mark the downfall of one of the industry’s success stories. Mattei was considered a “legacy grower” on the illicit market — and served time in prison for a 2006 cannabis conviction — before he joined the regulated one when it opened in 2022. The Vermont Cannabis Control Board has made it a point of emphasis to bring growers such as him into the legal industry.
Mattei and Payette were among the first to get a license, one that allows them to grow up to 5,000 square feet of indoor cannabis canopy. They quickly earned a reputation for heady buds, which they sold at their Barre shop and some 20 others statewide. Last year, voters named Forbins Finest “best local cannabis grower” in Seven Days‘ annual Daysies contest.
But the business had been the subject of at least three anonymous complaints about shady practices, something Mattei attributed to a disgruntled former employee. Last October, state compliance officers began investigating an allegation of an illegal cannabis grow at a vacant home that Mattei and Payette own in rural Northfield. Their license only allows them to grow at their Barre warehouse, where the amount of cannabis produced and sold is closely tracked per state regulations.
Compliance officers later witnessed a former Forbins employee, Scott Rodd, move eight apparent cannabis plants from the Northfield property. He also burned some cannabis in a fireplace.
Regulators obtained utility bills for the property and found that the home “consumed an extraordinary volume of electricity,” with an average monthly bill of nearly $900 and a high of nearly $1,600 from late 2024 to late 2025.
The Cannabis Control Board issued the company a notice of violation in December and held a quasi-judicial hearing on April 30. As proof that Forbins wouldn’t risk its livelihood for such a small illegal grow, Payette testified to how well their legal cannabis business was doing, saying they raked in $8 million annually in gross revenue. Since getting a license, she said, they had not sold illegal cannabis and, she noted, investigators had never actually proved they were growing or selling illegal cannabis.
Payette said they’d lost $200,000 in sales while the investigation dragged on, and some retailers refused to carry their product until there was a resolution. Their bank had also dropped them, she testified, and the company’s brand had been tarnished.
“It’s literally been one nightmare after another,” she said.
But at every step, the board wrote in its ruling, Mattei and Rodd outright lied or changed their stories about what was actually happening at the Northfield house. While the illegal grow operation was a serious violation, the board wrote, the cover-up was worse than the crime.
“The many talented cannabis entrepreneurs in Vermont should know that the Board’s first priorities are compliance and public protection; punishment is not our brief,” it wrote. “The appropriate response to regulatory scrutiny, even if there has been a mistake, is disclosure.”
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