Latest news with #AmyMoore
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
'Safety fears' over lack of family-friendly car parking spaces
A mother of three who is also a Mid and East Antrim Borough councillor is calling for more parent and child parking in off-street car parks. Lauren Gray brought forward the motion to the council following difficulties getting her own children out of the car safely. "I've had to leave my three-year-old with my baby on the sidewalk while I try to reverse to get the doors open," she said. "That really is a safety fear but I had no other option." The council said the borough currently has 13 family-friendly bays in its town car parks with plans for that number to increase. Mid and East Antrim Council is one of only five local authorities in Northern Ireland with parent and child spaces at its council-run car parks. This does not include facilities at leisures centres. But Ms Gray said the number of family-friendly spaces was "lacking" in the council's car parks. "Modern life doesn't really blend well with our existing town infrastructure because our towns are quite old," she said. She said increasing the number of bays would "ease stress for local families and carers" who need to get toddlers, babies and prams out of their cars. "We need to make our town centre more accessible if we want people to come and shop and spend time here," she added. "Not only is this a real safety issue for parents and carers, it really is a combined effort to get everybody into the town centre so that we can continue to grow and increase our footfall." Amy Moore from Whitehead, County Antrim, agreed, saying it was "definitely hard getting out of a normal car parking space with two children". "Anywhere that we go to park we need both doors open to get them out," she said. "We've got the baby bag and all of the things to get out of the car so we definitely need the extra space." Mrs Moore said, on occasion, she has "driven around three or four times to find a space that would be suitable". "I think a lot of the cars now have increased in size now but the spaces haven't increased as well," she said. Amy's mother Anna Rolloos has four grandchildren and said it can be "difficult" to get them all in and out of the car. Ms Rolloos said she needs space to open the doors, get the pram out and her youngest grandchild strapped in before getting the other children out. "It's the safety of having them all close beside you, being able to open the doors of the car," she said. "One of the children maybe needs someone holding their hand." She said having parent and child spaces close to shops is "excellent" as it means "not having to walk them through a busy car park". The motion calling for more parent and child parking bays at Mid and East Antrim Borough Council was backed unanimously in February. A spokesperson added that an additional 22 family-friendly bays were due to be added in Ballymena car parks. Derry City and Strabane Council recently introduced new bays and Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council has plans to increase the number of spaces from 14 to 18. Belfast City Council has 17 family-friendly spaces across 30 car parks with no plans to increase that number, while Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council has six such spaces with plans for additional spaces in the pipeline. Ards and North Down Council as well as Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council have no family-friendly spaces at their off-street car parks, but there are some at their leisure facilities. Newry, Mourne and Down District Council does not provide any parent and child car parking spaces within its car parks, adding that councils are "not legally obligated" to do so. Mid Ulster does not have any parent and child spaces in any of the council-maintained car parks and has no plans to change that. Likewise, Fermanagh and Omagh District Council does not provide parent-child parking spaces in its off street car parks but is currently reviewing its overall car parking plan. Causeway Coast and Glens said the council did not keep a record of such information.
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Missouri cannabis regulators find another 6,000 products that should have been recalled in 2023
In August 2023, the state suspended Delta Extraction's license after finding the company's distillate was made with untested 'marijuana or converted hemp from outside of a Missouri licensed cultivation facility" (Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent). In Missouri's massive marijuana recall two years ago, regulators pulled 62,000 products off the shelves that contained a THC concentrate the state deemed a 'potential threat to health and safety.' Last week, the Missouri Division of Cannabis Regulation added another 6,000 products to that list that should have been pulled in 2023 because they were all made with an ingredient produced by the company at the heart of the recall, Robertsville-based Delta Extraction. The new 'threats' were found after the division was ordered in February by the state's administrative hearing commission to release any Midwest Magic brand products from its 2023 recall list. During that review, the division discovered additional marijuana products containing a THC oil that Delta Extraction made using 'unregulated cannabis,' the division stated in a Thursday press release. 'Regarding risks to the public, the department recalled these products for the same reason it issued the original, related recall: It identified a potential threat to health and safety,' said Amy Moore, the divisions director, in an email to The Independent. However, there have been no adverse reactions reported for any of the product in the original or updated recall, she said. 'The initial recall was a large and complex endeavor requiring expert application of system functionality and program processes,' she said. 'The department has made improvements in both areas since that time and continues to improve in ways that ensure future recalls can better identify all relevant product at initial issuance.' Delta Extraction is a licensed cannabis manufacturing facility that specializes in making THC distillate, a highly potent and pure form of THC used for things like vape pens, infused pre-rolled joints and edibles. About 100 other manufacturers bought the distillate in question in spring 2023 and went on to make thousands of products. In August 2023, the division suspended Delta Extraction's license after finding the company's distillate was made with untested 'marijuana or converted hemp from outside of a Missouri licensed cultivation facility.' The state also issued the product recall. Delta Extraction loses appeal of its revoked license following Missouri cannabis recall A few months later, the state rolled back its recall of nearly 15,000 Midwest Magic products and allowed them to return to the dispensary shelves. Though part owner of the Delta facility, Midwest Magic owners successfully argued that the brand didn't use the distillate in its products. A company called A Joint Operation owns the other 50% of Delta Extraction. In February, Delta Extraction lost its appeal of its license suspension, but it was awarded a renewed search for Midwest Magic products on the recall list. The Thursday update released about 120 Midwest Magic products from dispensaries and manufacturing facilities. The update also allowed testing labs to release samples of several hundred recalled products so they can be destroyed. Ted Maritz, co-owner of Midwest Magic, said the company had already written off the released items as a loss. 'I'm not going to ask any stores for payment or anything,' Maritz said. 'Everyone's gone through hell for this.' While the ordered search had a small impact on Midwest Magic, it is having a big impact on some dispensaries and manufacturers carrying the 6,200 products. The recall list actually represents product tags used by the state's tracing system called Metrc. Each tag in dispensaries typically represents a case of 10 to 12 units. And Metrc tags for manufacturing facilities represent ingredients that could make thousands or millions of units. One Kansas City manufacturer had almost 700 ingredients recalled Thursday. Josh Corson, co-owner of A Joint Operation, said he had not yet heard about the updated recall, in a text message Friday to The Independent and could not immediately comment. Over the last two years, several companies have opted to destroy the products to make more room in their storage areas. Lisa Cox, spokeswoman for the division, said there was a slight increase for destruction requests since February through April, following the commission's decision and totaling about 200 requests. However the division is 'unable to identify whether these requests are specific to the February decision,' she said. The units remaining on hold for the Delta Extraction recall, which have not been destroyed, total nearly 157,000 items. That includes 4,000 THC concentrate items that equal 378,000 grams of oil, along with about 13,000 grams of marijuana flower. It also includes 18,000 infused edibles, more than 40,000 pre-rolled joints and 90,000 vape cartridges. In Delta's appeal, the company argued the process it used to make the distillate was safe and legal. Delta Extraction admitted to importing a large amount of THC-A — a non-psychoactive compound of the cannabis plant that becomes intoxicating when heated — purportedly extracted from hemp plants. The company's contractor would mix it with a smaller amount of THC-A extracted from Missouri-regulated marijuana. Delta argued the hemp-derived THC-A should fall under the same rules as added ingredients, like flavors or the non-intoxicating cannabis compound CBD, because hemp is not a federally controlled substance like marijuana. It was taken off the federal controlled substance list in the 2018 farm bill. But Carole Iles of Missouri's administrative hearing commission, wrote in her 137-page ruling that THC-A becomes intoxicating through the exact same process no matter if it's extracted from hemp or marijuana, so the state is correct in regulating the THC the same as marijuana. That means it must be grown and manufactured in licensed Missouri facilities, Iles concluded, and tracked from the time the seed goes into the soil in the Metrc system. 'THC originating from other sources,' she wrote, 'is prohibited.' Chuck Hatfield, former attorney for Delta Extraction, said licensed facilities have the ability to challenge these new recalls of the products on their shelves. 'They probably should,' Hatfield said. 'Because DCR has had such difficulty figuring out which products should be recalled, no licensee can be sure which products it can sell.'
