A Social Equity Council Member's Family Café Received $100,000

A member of the Connecticut Social Equity Council, the body that decides who qualifies for the state’s cannabis equity licences and loans, is connected to a family business that received $100,000 in state grant money through a Hartford nonprofit whose records are now the subject of a federal grand jury subpoena served on the state.

The money was paid, in both years it was awarded, before the agreements governing it were signed. A forensic examiner hired by the state could not verify, from the records the business provided, that the money paid for anything beyond ordinary business operations. The café has since ceased operations.

The Council member, Andréa Hawkins, disclosed the business on her Statement of Financial Interests every year the money was moving. She remains on the Council today.

She is not accused of wrongdoing in either report. The federal inquiry, as the state’s own examiner describes it, concerns someone else.

What she disclosed, and when

Hawkins has filed a Statement of Financial Interests with the Office of State Ethics for each of the last three calendar years. Connecticut CannaTimes obtained the filings for 2023, 2024 and 2025 from the Office of State Ethics under the Freedom of Information Act.^3,4,5

All three are identical on the facts that matter. Under Occupation, each records her current state position as Executive Branch, agency “Social Equity Council,” title “Board member.”

Under Businesses, each records:

“Name of Business: Berkins Family LLC · 33 Weir Street, Glastonbury · Nature of Business: Cafe · Nature of Interest: Co-Owner · Interest Held By: Spouse”

A second entry on the same page lists Berkins Family Consulting dba LCS, at the same address, nature of business “Business Consulting,” nature of interest “Owner,” interest held by spouse.

Connecticut Office of State Ethics. Statements of Financial Interests for 2024 and 2025, Andrea Hawkins, Businesses sections. View full original document (2024) and View full original document (2025).

Under Income Sources, each filing lists two lines. One is “Partnership Distributions” from Berkins Family LLC, recipient “Spouse.” The other is “Partnership Distributions” from Berkins Family Consulting dba LCS, recipient “Self.”

Connecticut Office of State Ethics. Statement of Financial Interests for 2023, Andrea Hawkins, filed January 30, 2024, Businesses and Income Sources sections. Obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. View full original document.

Each filing is certified “UNDER PENALTY OF FALSE STATEMENT,” above an acknowledgment that a failure to file timely and accurately carries a penalty of up to $10,000. The 2023 filing was submitted at 5:15 p.m. on January 30, 2024. The first state payment to the café went out twenty-nine days later. The 2024 filing was submitted on February 3, 2025 and the 2025 filing on March 17, 2026.

Connecticut Office of State Ethics. Certifications and filing timestamps, Statements of Financial Interests for 2023, 2024 and 2025. View full original document (2023), 2024, 2025.

The state’s own business registry records the ownership differently from the ethics filing. The Secretary of the State’s principals file lists two principals for BERKINS FAMILY LLC, registered April 1, 2015 and still carried as active: “DOUGLAS BARBER” and “ANDREA R HAWKINS,” both at 33 Weir Street, Glastonbury.^9,10 The same two people are the principals of a second active entity at the same address, Berkins Family Consulting LLC, registered February 23, 2022. Her ethics filing attributes the café interest to her spouse. The registry lists her as a principal of the company. Both statements are on the public record, and the registry does not record what role a principal holds. The two registry entries can be read directly: the company record and the list of its principals.

The money

Berkins Family LLC appears in two separate forensic reports that CliftonLarsonAllen LLP produced for the Department of Economic and Community Development.

The grants were not Social Equity Council money, and the Council did not award them. They were state legislative grant funds that DECD routed through the Blue Hills Civic Association, a Hartford nonprofit, which then passed them to subrecipients. On who chose those subrecipients, the January 2026 report quotes a BHCA board document titled DECD Funding Overview:¹

“Senator McCrory identified the organizations in this packet based upon his experience and knowledge of each agency. He also determined the allocated dollar amount for each agency.”

Berkins Family LLC received $50,000 in fiscal 2024 and $50,000 in fiscal 2025. The September 2026 report classifies it as a “For-Profit Entity,” one of six so classified among the thirty-one subrecipients it lists.²

The January forensic report quotes provisions from the standard subrecipient agreement, including a requirement that grant funds be spent on the projects identified in Appendix A and according to the approved budget.¹ The report does not reproduce Berkins Family LLC’s project-specific Appendix A, leaving its precise stated grant purpose unverified.

The dates are the first problem. From the September report:

“BHCA Grant Award Amount 2024: $50,000 · FY24 Date of MOU: March 5, 2024 · FY24 Date Executed / Submitted via Email on: May 14, 2024 · FY24 Date of Payment: February 28, 2024”

“BHCA Grant Award Amount 2025: $50,000 · FY25 Date of MOU: September 30, 2024 · FY25 Date Executed / Submitted via Email on: December 2, 2024 · FY25 Date of Payment: October 16, 2024”

The two reports give different dates for that second payment. The September report puts it at October 16, 2024. The January report, in a separate table listing the subrecipients named in an October 21, 2024 email from the Crumbie Law Group, records the first disbursement to Berkins Family LLC as October 15, 2024.¹ Both figures appear in official state records and neither report explains the difference. The two agree that the agreement bore an effective date of September 30, 2024.

The examiner’s conclusion:

“CLA noted that for both fiscal years, funds were disbursed prior to execution of the MOU, which is not consistent with standard grant administration practices, which typically require execution of agreements prior to disbursement.”

Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development. Blue Hills Civic Association Subrecipient Forensic Audit, CliftonLarsonAllen LLP, September 1, 2026, printed pages 59 and 60. View full original document. Official source: https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/decd/press-room/press-releases/2026/final-subrecipient-testing-report_20260901.pdf

In the first year the money moved seventy-six days before the agreement was executed, and six days before the date the agreement itself bears.

The request to change the dates

The January 2026 report documents what happened to the paperwork. It describes an email chain from March 2024 between Vicki Gallon-Clark, BHCA’s former executive director, and an attorney at the Crumbie Law Group:

“Ms. Gallon-Clark asks if the MOUs can be backdated to October 6, 2023, stating ‘Senator McCrory and I met with community partners on 10/6/23.’ The email indicates that the former president of the BHCA Board of Directors, JoAnn Price, (‘Ms. Price’), made the request and also requested that the draft not be shared with the rest of the Board.”

Then, in the same chain:

“In subsequent emails within the chain, Ms. Gallon-Clark asks the attorney for revised dates for two subrecipient MOUs, Don’s Kitchen and Berkins Family.”

Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development. Forensic Audit of Blue Hills Civic Association, CliftonLarsonAllen LLP, January 20, 2026, printed page 21. View full original document. Official source: https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/decd/reports/decd-report-final.pdf

The fiscal 2024 table lists twenty-three subrecipients. Revised dates were sought for two of them. Both are for-profit businesses, and one is the café.

On the next page, Table 7 sets out what each subrecipient was paid and when. Eleven of the twenty-three rows are highlighted in yellow, and Berkins Family LLC is one of them. The examiner explains the highlighting directly beneath the table:

“Through emails, CLA determined that the highlighted subrecipients in the above table signed backdated MOUs. Because the MOUs were backdated and most signatories did not date their signature, CLA is unable to determine when the majority of MOUs were officially executed.”

Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development. Table 7, “FY’24 Legislative Grant Subrecipient Disbursement and MOU Dates,” January 20, 2026 report, printed page 22, reproduced with the examiner’s original highlighting. View full original document. Official source: https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/decd/reports/decd-report-final.pdf

The highlighting is the examiner’s own classification, and it carries no finding about who asked for what. Across fiscal 2024 the report also found at least seven subrecipient agreements it could not locate at all, covering $490,000, and five subrecipients paid before execution, covering $295,000.

The following year followed the same pattern. Describing an October 21, 2024 email between the Crumbie Law Group and BHCA that enclosed draft fiscal 2025 agreements, the January report says that “similarly to 2024, these MOUs contained backdated effective dates,” and that every agreement in the accompanying table, Berkins Family LLC among them, “were still unsigned as of October 21, 2024.” By that date the café had already been paid.

Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development. Table 8, “Legislative Grant Subrecipients Referenced in the October 21, 2024 Email,” January 20, 2026 report, printed page 24. View full original document. Official source: https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/decd/reports/decd-report-final.pdf

What the examiner found in the spending

The September 2026 report examined the café’s use of the $100,000 and placed it in Tier 2, the middle of three categories. The report defines that tier carefully:

“Subrecipients classified as Tier 2 were unable to provide sufficient documentation to substantiate reported use of funds. While procedures performed did not identify definitive indicators of misuse, the absence or insufficiency of supporting records limits the ability to verify compliance with program requirements. These classifications reflect documentation deficiencies rather than conclusions regarding unallowable expenditures.”

Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development. Tier 2 definition, September 1, 2026 subrecipient report, printed page 28. View full original document. Official source: https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/decd/press-room/press-releases/2026/final-subrecipient-testing-report_20260901.pdf

On what the business is:

“Berkins Family LLC is a for-profit entity operating as a café business. Public records indicate the entity was established in 2015 and is not a tax-exempt organization. No website or formal public-facing program documentation was identified.”

On what the money bought:

“BHCA funds were used primarily to support general business operations, including payroll, payroll taxes, equipment purchases, and marketing-related expenses. However, the documentation available does not demonstrate a clear linkage between these expenditures and a qualifying programmatic purpose.”

The business’s internal records showed payroll of more than $123,580.57 in fiscal 2024 and $130,177.85 in fiscal 2025. Those are the whole payroll of the business, not a record of grant spending, and that is the examiner’s point: each figure exceeds the entire annual grant, and nothing was supplied to separate one from the other.

“no detailed payroll registers, employee listings, timesheets, or allocation methodologies were provided to demonstrate how these costs were calculated or how they were associated with grant-funded activities.”

“The total expenditures reflected in the records significantly exceeded the grant funding amounts, and no methodology was provided to identify which costs were charged to the grant versus general business operations.”

Equipment purchases, including from Amazon and commercial suppliers, were “supported only by bank statement entries or internal classifications, and no invoices, receipts, or proof of goods received were provided.”

On the public purpose, which is the condition attached to the money:

“As a for-profit entity, the use of grant funds is subject to requirements that funds support a defined public purpose and not routine business operations.”

The business told the examiner it had conducted “community outreach,” including hiring young people and giving them exposure to business operations. The report found:

“no documentation was provided to support these statements, and no evidence of a structured, formal community-based program was identified during testing.”

And when more records were requested:

“ownership indicated that providing further supporting documentation would require significant administrative effort, and no additional documentation was provided in response to requests.”

The report’s conclusion on the café is that CLA “was unable to verify the existence of structured community programming or determine whether expenditures were directly tied to a documented public purpose.” That is a finding about the records supplied, not a finding that nothing was done.

Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development. September 1, 2026 subrecipient report, printed pages 61 and 62. View full original document. Official source: https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/decd/press-room/press-releases/2026/final-subrecipient-testing-report_20260901.pdf

The report identifies the people it spoke to as “ownership, Andrea and Doug Barber.” It does not use the surname under which the Council member files her ethics statements, and it does not note that she holds a state appointment.

The nonprofit and the federal inquiry

Blue Hills Civic Association no longer operates. The January 2026 report records that after DECD learned in March 2025 of a separate $300,000 fraudulent transfer, it “halted any additional funding to BHCA, ordered BHCA to return DECD funds and stop any further disbursements,” most staff were laid off, and “BHCA ceased all operations.”

Then:

“On July 31, 2025, federal authorities issued a grand jury subpoena to DECD requesting documents, communications, and records related to BHCA and certain subgrantees, dated from January 1, 2020 to July 31, 2025. The federal inquiry includes in part an investigation into Connecticut state Senator Doug McCrory, (‘Senator McCrory’), and his connections to BHCA, and the BHCA subgrantee SHEBA Resource Center and SHEBA CEO, Sonserae Cicero, (‘Ms. Cicero’).”

The subpoena changed the work itself. At DECD’s request, the scope was pushed back from July 1, 2022 to January 1, 2020, to align with the timeframe of the federal inquiry.

The subpoena was served on the state agency, not on any subrecipient. Neither report places Hawkins, Barber or Berkins Family LLC within the federal inquiry, and nothing in the public record reviewed for this article indicates they are subjects of it.

She is still on the Council

Hawkins appears on the Council’s published roster as an “Office of the Governor Appointee.”⁶

She is not a lapsed member. The draft minutes the Council posts record her present at every full-council meeting this year for which minutes have been published: January 6, March 3, April 7, May 5, June 2, September 1 and September 8. At the September 8 special meeting, the most recent meeting for which the Council had published minutes as of October 26, 2026, she is listed among members present. She moved the motions approving the slates of grant recipients for the Meriden, New Haven and New London regions, and seconded the motions for Danbury and Norwalk.⁷

She also recuses. At that same meeting the minutes record her among “Abstentions/Recusals” on four regional votes: Hartford and East Hartford, New Britain, Stamford and Waterbury. On the Hartford and East Hartford vote, eight of the fourteen members present stepped aside and the motion passed six to nothing. A week earlier, on September 1, the minutes record “Recusals/Abstentions: Andréa Hawkins” on the Council’s fiscal 2027 budget.⁸ At that meeting Chair Naeem reminded Council members to disclose any conflicts of interest and recuse themselves where appropriate.

Connecticut Social Equity Council. Special meeting draft minutes, September 8, 2026, pages 1 and 3. The Council posts these minutes marked draft. Not held in the Connecticut CannaTimes archive. Official source: https://portal.ct.gov/socialequitycouncil/-/media/social-equity-council/2026-meetings/090826_sec-special-meeting_minutes.pdf

No minutes located by Connecticut CannaTimes record Hawkins participating in, or recusing from, any Council matter involving Blue Hills Civic Association or DECD legislative grants. The Council’s own grants are a different stream of money from the one that reached the café.

The Council’s staff is now led by Brandon L. McGee, listed on the Council’s published staff directory as Chief Executive Officer. He appears in the September 8 minutes presiding over the final stage of the reinvestment grant process. He took the post after the payments described here were made.

What this record shows, and what it does not

It shows that a sitting member of the body governing Connecticut’s cannabis social equity programme is connected, through her husband and through the state’s own business registry, to a for-profit business that took $100,000 in state money. It shows the money was paid in both years before the agreements were executed. It shows the business was one of two for which an attorney was asked to supply revised dates in the same email chain that raised backdating, and one of eleven the examiner marked as having signed backdated agreements. It shows a state-commissioned examiner could not tie the spending to a documented public purpose from the records it was given. And it shows the nonprofit that moved the money is now the subject of a federal grand jury subpoena served on the state.

It also shows that she disclosed the business, by name and address, on a sworn filing, in each of the three years in question, and that she recuses herself from Council votes.

It does not show that the Social Equity Council awarded this money, or that Hawkins sought it, influenced it, or voted on anything connected to it. The grants were DECD legislative funds administered by BHCA, the report attributes the choice of recipients and amounts to Senator McCrory, and no document reviewed for this article places her in the award decision.

It does not show that the money was misspent. The examiner was explicit that its tiering reflects documentation deficiencies rather than conclusions about unallowable expenditures, and that it found no definitive indicators of misuse. An absence of records is not evidence that no community benefit occurred.

It does not show that she is a subject of the federal inquiry. The reports describe that inquiry as reaching Senator McCrory’s connections to BHCA and the subgrantee SHEBA.

And it does not show a failure of disclosure on her part. The disclosure exists, three years running, naming the business and its address.