Amid legal market delays, cannabis retail hopes frustrated by process

ST. PAUL, Minn. (GRAY) – As Minnesota’s legal cannabis market continues to take off, the rollout process has seen some delays recently.

Last week, the Office of Cannabis Management, or OCM, announced it would cancel its pre-approval process. The process was initially intended to issue license pre-approvals to social equity applicants, but legal challenges led the OCM to cancel the process altogether.

One of the candidates was Nick Rahn, owner of The Warrior’s Garden in downtown Saint-Paul. A veteran, Rahn qualified as a social equity candidate under the bill. He hoped to use pre-approval as a kind of insurance when applying for loans and making renovations needed to prepare for the retail market.

“The goal is to grow the retail business so we can have five stores, so I can give as much money as I can to my nonprofit, so I can help veterans as much as I can,” Rahn said.

Rahn and others like him hoped to get a head start on the process with pre-approval. This would also have allowed cultivation to begin, thus preparing the supply for the launch of a new industry.

“The social equity program, I thought it was a great idea initially,” Rahn said, “And, you know, the hope was to get our license in advance so we could actually start , you know, before everyone else, which would have been great.

Instead, Rahn, like many others, was denied entry into the Office of Cannabis Management’s pre-approval lottery for social equity applicants. He says they sent him a denial, but the details of what was wrong with the request were vague.

“The application process was pretty simple, but I was in the group of about 1,300 people who were denied without receiving a deficiency letter,” Rahn said.

When OCM decided to get rid of pre-approval altogether, they also implemented some policies that could help clarify things for business owners like Rahn.

“OCM will send requests for additional information to applicants who were denied during pre-approval,” OCM Acting Director Charlene Briner said on a press call last week , “and they will have the opportunity to correct a wider range of problems in their applications. and will also have the opportunity to reconsider.

Yet the decision to get rid of pre-approval altogether leaves things unclear. Despite Rahn’s frustrations with the process, he says it would have been helpful to get the process started.

“It’s a double-edged sword,” he said. “I wanted the lottery to take place so that producers could start growing. I was upset, I was frustrated, but at the same time, it would have been nice if the system continued to work. However, when people have been wrongly refused, it is an injustice and I don’t like it.”

The Office of Cannabis Management plans to hold a regular licensing lottery in May or June of next year.