most respect and empathy for the retailers.”
On the alcohol side, her agency is tasked with purchasing, distributing, and selling distilled spirits, including through the state’ s 802Spirits stores. Knight took on that responsibility with the governor’ s goals in mind.
“ He’ s focused on growing our economy, making Vermont more affordable and protecting the most vulnerable,” she says.“ Each agency creates our own goals that lead up to the governor’ s goals.”
For her and her staff, that was a three-fold objective. First, Knight wanted to fully integrate the two departments, liquor and lottery.
“ In 2018, legislation passed that took two smaller departments, liquor and lottery, and combined them,” she explains.“ But really, there was no meaningful integration. As soon as I became commissioner, I began work on that integration.”
The second objective was the legalization of online sports betting in the state. Knight achieved this goal in 2024 when Vermont passed a law to allow the practice. This comes as online sports wagering continues to grow in popularity across the country, with advertisements increasingly ubiquitous, especially during sports games.
Lastly, Knight came into the commissioner position looking to forge a clearer path forward for a new liquor warehouse.
“ Our current warehouse is more than 50 years old,” she says.“ It’ s 330,000 square feet; it’ s tiny. It doesn’ t allow us to grow.”
“ A larger warehouse will allow us to buy more products at less cost, thus improving our margins,” she adds.“ And we will have more inventory, and reduce breakage, with more room and fewer people bumping into one another. All that means that we will be able to invest more in the growth of our fund, which continues to fund the general fund.”
Work remains on that last objective, with Knight saying she continues to see progress towards the new warehouse goal.
BUSINESS FOCUSED
The commissioner’ s background includes leadership roles at various private businesses, including her family’ s. Accordingly, she has brought common-sense business practices to the Vermont Department of Liquor and Lottery.
This has helped improve and streamline the ways that licensees operate within the regulated system.
“ One of my goals was to make the department less bureaucratic and more responsive to the business needs of the licensees,” Knight say.“ We want to be good regulators and also good business partners.”
For instance, Knight recalls visiting an 802Spirits store in her hometown. While in line to buy a bottle, she recognized the manager of a local restaurant in line with her. However, this licensee was waiting at the register for a different reason than Knight; the licensee was not there to buy alcohol to take home for themself. Rather, this was how on-premise accounts would have to purchase products for their own bars: directly from retail stores, like any other random customer.
“ BEING A RETAILER IN THE PAST GAVE ME REAL INSIGHT INTO THAT WORLD, RETAIL IS A DIFFICULT SPACE. I HAVE THE UTMOST RESPECT AND EMPATHY FOR THE RETAILERS.”
– Wendy Knight, Commissioner of Vermont Department of Liquor and Lottery
An inefficient system, time-consuming to say the least.
“ That didn’ t make sense to me,” Knight says.“ So I set about to make a number of changes. In order to help grow Vermont’ s economy, our role in helping businesses with liquor licenses is to make it easier and quicker for them to purchase what they need.”
“ A lot of those establishments are the anchors of their downtowns,” she continues.“ They’ re theaters, restaurants, ski resorts, summer resorts. Wearing the hat again of zoning and development, I wanted to be a good business partner with them. I wanted to do a good job of supporting our businesses.”
Knight oversaw the creation and launch of an online ordering platform for the liquor agency.
“ It’ s no longer paper and check,” she says of the state’ s modernized system.“ It was game-changing. We sped up the pace of license ordering from 90 days down to less than two weeks. And it also improves access and transparency.”
With an eye towards fixing the problem she saw in that 802Spirits store, where the licensee was forced to wait in line, Knight changed the way that on-premise accounts ordered liquor. Working with the B2B technology provider Provi, the Vermont Department of Liquor and Lottery developed and implemented 802Spirits Connect, an online ordering platform for the state’ s bars and resorts.
Launched in November of last year, 802Spirits Connect allows on-premises licensees to browse real-time inventory, build and save order lists and place orders online at their con- www. stateways. com Spring 2026 • StateWays 15