- [Pamela] Tonight, Rhode Island brewers want less restrictive laws.

- All we want to do is get on par with neighboring states.

- [Pamela] Then, more local fallout surrounding President Trump's federal spending cuts with Ted Nesi.

- [Michelle] The troubling number of Americans who feel alone.

- Loneliness is just as deadly as smoking an entire pack of cigarettes a day.

(bright music) (bright music continues) - Good evening.

Welcome to "Rhode Island PBS Weekly."

I'm Michelle San Miguel.

- And I'm Pamela Watts.

We begin tonight with a story on the business of brewing beer.

- Craft brewing, as it's known, is on the rise around the country and here in Rhode Island where it attracts visitors and revenue.

But as our Ian Donnis found, many local brewers feel stymied by lawmakers and lobbyists who they say are keeping them from expanding their businesses.

- [Ian] Matt Richardson and his wife opened Tilted Barn Brewery on an old family farm in Exeter in 2014.

Craft beer was exploding in popularity at the time, and Tilted Barn was an immediate hit.

But Richardson was surprised to learn that Rhode Island lacks a separate license for farm-based breweries.

Farm-based wineries can sell unlimited amounts of their wine on their premises, and Richardson believed a similar license for farm-based breweries would make it possible to sell and distribute more beer.

He took his quest to create a farm-based brewery license to the State House.

During legislative hearing, Richardson's supporters ranged from the State Department of Business Regulation, or DBR, to the agency that bills itself as the voice of local agriculture.

- We had all the important agencies there at the State House for all these bills that were proposed advocating for us and in full support of us.

I was there speaking every time, and I just said, "Oh, this is gonna be great.

It's a piece of cake."

And then after we all spoke, a lobbyist for one of the larger wholesalers stood up.

- [Ian] According to Richardson, the lobbyist said he didn't think the bill to create a farm brewery license should move forward.

- Next thing you know, gavel's hit by the committee chair and said, "Oh, this bill's held for study, not gonna move forward."

That's when I learned about how it really works sometimes.

- [Ian] 10 years later, there's still not a farm brewery license in Rhode Island, although Connecticut and Massachusetts do offer that type of license.

- Really all we want to do is get on par with neighboring states.

There's a lot more freedom as to how they can sell their beer.

- [Ian] There are now almost 40 craft brewers in Rhode Island, up from just a handful 15 years ago.

Craft brewers say they employ more than 500 people, and that brewery tap rooms attracted more than a million visits in 2023.

But until 2013, the brewers couldn't even sell a six pack to customers who wanted to take one home.

That per person limit is now up to two cases, or 48 beers, although that amount is less than in other nearby states.

And then there is the issue of selling quantities of beer in different formats.

- We can't sell kegs ourselves out of the brewery.

If someone wants to have a backyard party and buy a keg from us, we're not allowed to do that.

- [Ian] And unlike in Connecticut and Massachusetts, Rhode Island brewers cannot distribute their own beer to liquor stores unless they create a separate company at an added cost of at least $2,000.

- It involves an expensive license you have to pay for every year, it involves extra infrastructure and staff to do it that way, and comes at a pretty significant cost.

- [Ian] Most states' alcohol laws are based on a three-tiered system developed after Prohibition.

It outlines separate roles for manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers.

But Rhode Island has done less than other New England states to modernize the three-tier system and make it less rigid.

Part of the reason?

Opposition from groups like the Teamsters Local 251, which works closely with alcohol distributors in the state.

Here's union lobbyist Paul MacDonald testifying before the House Small Business Committee last March.

- The Teamsters enjoy good paying jobs, and that is something that this State House has always worked so hard to create.

We are in the liquor business in a big way, and we are in the transportation business.

That's the core business that we have.

- [Ian] MacDonald defended the three-tier system and he says additional steps to help craft brewers would be bad for the Teamsters.

- Just remember, every time you do one of these little things, it takes another little job away from us, and we don't like that.

We have the good paying jobs now, we'd like to keep them.

- I don't think the distributors want our business.

It's too small, too small for them.

- [Ian] Jeremy Duffy runs The Guild, a craft brewery with multiple locations in the state.

- They're not gonna hire an additional Teamster because they're gonna get a Guild or a Tilted or a Ragged Island, they're just gonna put another item on their trucks.

- [Ian] Duffy is also vice president of the Rhode Island Brewer's Guild.

He says craft brewers multiplied over the last 15 years in part because the state increased their ability to sell beer from tap rooms.

But he says brewers are blocked now from things like opening satellite locations that would help to expand their business.

- And we need a lot more opportunities for growth and a lot more ability to have the customer attention to sell to the customer.

And what does that mean?

You know, our ability to maybe sell more off-premise, our ability to have self-distribution rights.

- What changes would you see as being a good thing for the three-tiered system?

- What I think we need to realize is that the three tiers should work in unison together.

The way it's set up right now, there always seems to be a conflict, and it always happens within the legislative side, that where one tier thinks the only way they can win is that they win themselves.

I think we can win up and down the three-tiered system.

- [Ian] But saturation has slowed the growth of the craft beer sector and there are other headwinds in the alcohol business.

- Beer sales are shrinking in the state.

They're actually shrinking internationally.

From fiscal year 2022 to 2023, packaged liquor stores saw a decrease in beer sales, about 14%.

I'm sure there were similar decreases in breweries.

I think right now everyone is concerned with their slice of the pie and everyone's pie slice shrunk.

- [Ian] Nick Fede Jr. runs the Kingston Liquor Mart in North Kingstown.

It's a third generation business started by his grandfather with money he saved during World War II.

Fede is head of the Rhode Island Liquor Operators Collaborative, an advocacy group for package stores.

He argues that the legislature is not more supportive of distributors and package stores than craft brewers.

- What I've seen at the State House through work with the Senate and House, that they have been open to helping the brewers over the last 10 years, there have been updates to the laws in the last 10 years to make it more business friendly to brewers.

The Raimondo administration, when revising craft brewer laws, put in a massive excise tax exemption for craft brewers up to a hundred thousand barrels per year.

- [Ian] Fede says the abundance of alcohol choices for consumers complicates efforts to increase everyone's share of the pie.

What would be the best way of addressing the concerns of people like yourself, distributors, and the craft brewers?

Is it possible for everyone to be happy and increase their business?

- I don't have a good answer for you there.

I think we need to focus on consumers, keeping them happy, giving them the variety that they want.

And I think that we need to continue support local products that are well made.

- Look, I understand that craft, these breweries are new.

They're like disruptors.

They're like Uber was to taxis and I understand that.

It's part of the changing and evolving economy that we have in Rhode Island, and I understand people want more choices.

- [Ian] House Speaker Joe Shekarchi says the General Assembly has taken steps to help craft brewers, but he says the changes sought by brewers need to be examined for how they affect other longstanding businesses.

- I think if there were a way to make this revenue neutral for the state, I think you'll see the deregulation change significantly.

So I would encourage the breweries, which they have a very effective lobbyist and they come up here and they work very hard and they have had in the last four years that I've been here, some significant gains and I will tell them to continue that process.

- [Ian] Back at Tilted Barn Brewery in Exeter, owner Matt Richardson likes the modest scale of his business with seven full-time employees and more in the summer, but he still views state regulation as an impediment to growth.

Richardson says comparable out-of-state breweries that started around the same time as Tilted Barn now make about five to 10 times as much beer.

- That's not to say that we would want to be that big.

We're happy with our slow and steady approach and we kind of like to keep it simple, but at the same time, obviously when you run a business, you want to see growth and you want to support the people that work for you.

And to do that, you need to make more beer.

- Lawmakers continue to discuss the competing interests of participants in Rhode Island's three-tiered system for alcohol, but it's unclear for now if that will help produce any more common ground this year.

Up next on this episode of Weekly Insight, Michelle and WPRI 12's politics editor Ted Nesi discuss how the Trump administration's federal spending cuts to a whole host of programs, including Medicaid and cancer research will affect Rhode Islanders and how our state's AG and congressional leaders are fighting back.

- Ted, welcome back.

It's good to see you.

President Trump has been back in the Oval Office for less than a month and already, there has been so much activity happening from his administration that at times it's hard for reporters to keep up.

- It really is, Michelle.

I looked before we started taping this and the White House has already issued over 60 different executive orders as we're talking today on everything from birthright citizenship and abortion all the way to plastic straws so it really has been like a tidal wave of news so far.

- I want to focus on two policies that could affect Rhode Islanders, specifically, you're monitoring the federal funding freeze as well as immigration.

What are you hearing?

- Well, the funding freeze is interesting because there's been so much back and forth.

At first you saw that outcry because people thought it was going to be a huge funding freeze across everything, including Medicaid.

Then it was significantly rolled back, but not fully.

So now first of all, there's court activity around what is and isn't allowed, but secondarily, we're still getting these reports episodically popping up, state government saying an energy program is cut off here, a farm program's cut off there.

So watching to figure out what's really going on with that.

And then on immigration, again, it's not clear what is going to happen.

I mean, the President's talked about mass deportations.

There's a lot of, I think, tension as people watch to see what's going to happen, but we have not actually seen major large scale raids locally so far either, so I think people just don't know what to expect right now.

- Providence Mayor Brett Smiley spoke about that during a recent meeting in Providence with other New England mayors.

Let's take a listen to some of what he had to say.

- I know it's true for the other Rhode Island mayors with whom I've spoken and I imagine is true for the other mayors around the region.

At this moment in time, we are expending a tremendous amount of energy chasing down rumors every time there's a black SUV in the city that somebody doesn't recognize, there's a rumor that it's an ICE raid.

That has not happened in the city of Providence in the last two weeks as far as we know.

- And Ted, of course, we'll continue monitoring that.

In the meantime, there are also major implications from what's happening in Washington DC as it relates to Rhode Island's healthcare sector.

- Yes, and there's two kind of pieces to this I think people should be watching closely.

First is on the National Institutes of Health, the NIH.

It sounds arcane, but they want to change the percentage that universities and other research institutions get for indirect costs.

Basically, the way people should think about this is when you hear that Brown has gotten a big grant for cancer research, for example, they can keep a percentage of that that goes toward overhead, lab space, administrators, the overall administration of the university.

And it's sort of a subsidy that helps the university operate.

The Trump administration wants to lower that to 15%.

At Brown, it's closer to something like 30% according to if you calculate based on what they've been saying.

And Brown's saying if that goes through, they might have to abruptly halt clinical trials.

We're talking about things like, as I said, cancer, Alzheimer's research is another NIH funded thing there.

So that could have a big effect, though again, that's in the courts now.

And then the other one is on Medicaid.

The House Republicans, as they're putting together their budget, are looking at potentially significant reductions in the Medicaid insurance program.

In Rhode Island, that's well over $2 billion a year comes in from the Feds on Medicaid.

So that's two streams of funding that are kind of important linchpins of healthcare and medical research in Rhode Island that could be changing significantly that I think could have a lot of effect.

- Let's go back to the federal funding freeze.

A lot of the legal activity that we're seeing happening is occurring right here in Rhode Island at Federal District Court in front of Chief Judge McConnell, despite it being a national issue.

So how is Rhode Island involved?

- Well, I think Attorney General Peter Neronha and the other state attorneys general wanted to file in a court.

They thought they'd get a hearing, some would say a sympathetic hearing.

Others would just say a judge they trusted would be fair minded in this.

And I think they felt good about their odds before Judge McConnell.

And of course, so far it's worked out for them because they got the temporary restraining order against the Trump administration on this.

- And McConnell is used to being in the spotlight to some extent.

Explain for folks who don't know who he is.

- Right, probably not to this degree, Michelle, where Elon Musk is calling for his impeachment on social media from the federal bench, but I'm sure we have viewers who recognize, Jack McConnell is how he's universally known in Rhode Island, but Judge McConnell, of course, to the lawyers at the bar.

He made millions of dollars as a trial attorney when he was in private practice doing asbestos cases, tobacco cases, things like that, became very prominent.

He used that wealth to become a significant philanthropist, but also to donate a lot to Democratic party politicians and campaigns.

That became a major source of controversy when President Obama nominated Jack McConnell to the bench back in 2010, because Republicans said he's too embedded in democratic politics to be a fair-minded judge.

In fact, the US Chamber of Commerce, it was the first time they'd ever fought a district court nomination was Judge McConnell.

Now Sheldon Whitehouse, Jack Reed beat that back in the Senate, they got him through.

But you know, unlike a lot of judges at this level, Jack McConnell has felt some of the national heat, but again, I don't think to the degree he is right now.

- Yeah, this is different.

- Yeah, exactly.

- Good to see you.

Thank you Ted.

- Good to be here.

- Finally tonight, we take another look at a story we first aired in November about the ever-growing sense of loneliness that many here in Rhode Island and around the country are experiencing.

It's a feeling we all have from time to time, but new research has found it's more widespread than many previously realized.

In October, a Gallup poll found one in five Americans said they experienced loneliness for much of their day.

Producer Isabella Jibilian explores how this problem and potential solutions are taking shape in our state and around the country.

- I was like so nervous to go.

- [Isabella] At 17, Tabitha Grandolfo moved from Hong Kong to Providence to study at Brown University.

- It was 2021 and there were COVID restrictions, meant that if I wanted to go home, I would have to spend three weeks in a hotel in quarantine before I was able to go back and see my family.

- [Isabella] She says being so far from home made finding community even more important.

But by the second semester, she worried that other students weren't looking for new friends anymore.

- [Tabitha] I was in a play and I was really excited.

It was my first play that I did on campus.

A roommate and a friend came to see it and I came back after the show and they didn't talk about it at all.

And then the two of them went to some party or after party and left me in the dorm alone and I was just sitting there in my room alone folding laundry.

- [Isabella] When she returned home to Hong Kong at the end of the school year, her depression was overwhelming.

- I remember not being able to get out of bed and my mom was like, "Do you think you can go back?"

- [Isabella] Stories like Grandolfo's are familiar to Richard Weissbourd, a professor at Harvard University.

- When people think of loneliness, they often think of senior citizens.

But in our data, the people who have the highest rates of loneliness are young adults.

They're people in their twenties and they're people in their thirties.

- [Isabella] Weissbourd did a national survey on loneliness during the pandemic and found that 36% of Americans felt miserable levels of loneliness.

For young adults, it was 61%.

He says since then, those statistics have improved, but remain a worry.

- The loneliness rates were still high.

They were high before the pandemic.

- What particular challenges do young adults face that you feel contributes to this high rate of loneliness?

- I don't think social media is the main cause of this, but I think social media can really diminish our sense of connection to other people.

- [Isabella] And our social infrastructure has changed.

He says people used to find greater community in work and in religion.

♪ Glory on before ♪ - [Dr. Weissbourd] There are rituals of gratitude and coming of age ceremonies where you're asked to think about your responsibility for people in your community.

I'm not saying we should become more religious, but I think we need to think about how to reproduce some of these aspects of religion in secular life.

I think that's a very important thing to do.

- [Isabella] That's because loneliness comes at a cost.

Last year, the US Surgeon General warned that there was an epidemic of loneliness.

- And social disconnection is associated with an increased risk of not only depression, anxiety and suicide, but also heart disease, dementia, stroke, and premature death.

- Loneliness is just as deadly as smoking an entire pack of cigarettes a day.

- [Isabella] Ashley Kirsner has spent much of her career studying the psychology of loneliness.

- It's really impacting our bodies in ways that we're just only beginning to learn about.

- Why is loneliness a tricky problem to solve?

- One of the trickiest things about loneliness is that the lonelier you are, the more negatively you see social situations and therefore the less likely you are to put yourself in social situations.

Let's say you're at a bar and you see someone look at you and look away.

Very neutral social interaction.

You can make any nerd if you want of it.

But if you're already feeling lonely, you're likelier to see someone look at you and look away and you might make a narrative that's something like, "Oh, they don't wanna talk to me," or, "Oh, they looked at me, they decided I'm not worth their time."

- [Isabella] Kirsner saw firsthand how damaging this mindset can be.

For two years she volunteered at a suicide hotline.

It was there that she began to notice a pattern among the people who called in.

- No matter who I was talking to, they generally had someone who cared about them in their life, but when I asked them, "Oh, have you talked about how you're feeling to that person?"

Almost across the board people would say, "Oh no, we just don't talk about that sort of thing."

Or, "No, I don't wanna be a burden."

It was really striking to me that you can still feel lonely even with having someone who cared about you.

It just seemed like the determining factor of whether you were lonely or not was whether you felt comfortable opening up to those people.

I started asking, "Well, if the roles were reversed, would you want them to tell you about it?"

And the answer was, without exception, "Oh, of course I would want them to tell me about it."

So I realized there was this weird gap between how vulnerable people were comfortable being and how vulnerable people wanted others to be with them.

- [Isabella] It gave her an idea, creating an event where people could practice being vulnerable.

- I posted it on Facebook and before I knew it, we sold out at 50 tickets weeks in advance.

It was supposed to be a three hour long event and I had to kick people out after seven hours 'cause they wouldn't stop talking to each other.

I told myself, okay, I'll just keep hosting these until people stop showing up and it's been about eight years, people keep showing up so we keep hosting 'em.

- [Isabella] Skip The Small Talk has since spread to Providence and more than 20 other cities across the world.

(people chattering indistinctly) - We use question prompts designed based on psychology research to help people have one-on-one conversations that are a little more meaningful and a little more vulnerable than you might get to.

- All right, you got about 30 seconds left, 30 seconds.

- [Ashley] I remember one thing people expressed at the event were, "Oh, I thought I was the only one who wanted to talk about this more vulnerable, deep stuff."

And people were surprised to see that other people wanted to talk about it too.

- [Isabella] Talking about it also proved important for Brown student Tabitha Grandolfo.

She worked with a therapist on her insecurities, took medication for her depression, and was vulnerable with a friend.

- I told her, I was like, "I don't know how I'm feeling.

I'm feeling really nervous."

And I was telling her all the reasons why and she was like, "We can create a routine together."

- [Isabella] Each morning, she and her friend would eat breakfast and then walk to class together.

And each evening, they met up to do homework.

- Thanks for coming!

- [Isabella] She also got involved with a mental health advocacy group on campus called Active Minds.

- The first day I joined, they're like, "We're looking for someone to do our graphic design."

And I was like, "I'll do it."

- [Isabella] They have a tradition of making friendship bracelets.

- Everyone have their eyes closed.

- [Isabella] Club members give each other beads and then string them together.

Now a senior with plans to graduate this spring with degrees in psychology and theater, Grandolfo keeps her bracelets from years past.

- I have some others too, but this one I feel like is special 'cause it's the first one that I did.

- [Isabella] They are a reminder of the community she has found.

- It was my birthday over the weekend.

- [Student] Oh, happy late birthday!

- No matter what happens, I can go on a Wednesday evening and be able to see these people who are willing to listen to me and Active Minds is really where I found that comfort and community.

- That's our broadcast this evening.

Thank you for joining us.

I'm Michelle San Miguel.

- And I'm Pamela Watts.

We'll be back next week with another edition of "Rhode Island PBS Weekly."

Until then, please follow us on Facebook and YouTube and visit us online to see all of our stories and past episodes at ripbs.org/weekly, or you can listen to our podcast on your favorite streaming platform.

Goodnight.

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