State cannabis officials want Minnesota legislature to consider temporary licenses to meet market launch goal
MINNEAPOLIS — State cannabis officials hope the state legislature will consider tweaks to the business licensing process to meet the goal of retail marijuana sales available beginning in early 2025.
In a recent informational webinar, interim director of the Office of Cannabis Management Charlene Briner said the fledgling regulatory agency continues to hire staff and build out the infrastructure necessary to oversee the legal cannabis marketplace, including setting up an online application system for prospective business owners to seek licenses. Regulators will begin testing how it well it works later this spring.
But when lawmakers return to St. Paul next week for the 2024 legislative session, Briner hopes that they will update the law with modifications "designed to both help us launch successfully and in a timely way, and also to help us effectively regulate over time," she explained in the hour-long meeting late last week.
Among those recommendations is allowing for temporary business licenses, especially for "social equity" applicants, in order to keep the state on schedule for its anticipated market launch in the first quarter of next year. The cannabis management office detailed recommendations in two reports sent to the legislature.
"When I say temporary licenses, I mean early licenses — so as soon as this summer depending on if the legislature decides to take us up on that," Briner said.
She also believes that lawmakers should also remove barriers to getting a license that she characterized as "bottlenecks," like the requirement that Minnesotans secure property for their business before even receiving a license to operate.
"Trying to secure that building and spend thousands if not millions on a facility — without any assurances of obtaining a license — is incredibly expensive and uncertain and creates a great deal of risk for potential business operators," she explained.
Jason Tarasek, an attorney with Vicente LLP, which specializes in cannabis, praised the Office of Cannabis Management recommendations, especially the push for provisional licenses. He noted that in order to get product on shelves, there needs to be plants in the ground and that takes months.
"Some businesses will choose to sell the whole flower, the actual plant, but a lot of businesses I think want to process that into other products and that all takes time so the sooner we can get going the better," he told WCCO.
He advises clients and anyone else hoping to cash-in on cannabis to start laying the groundwork for their businesses now. The process of launching one in this field can be costly and there are a lot of requirements in order to operate, like advanced security measures.
As the cannabis office continues to scale up, some businesses are already thinking about the future, like a company on the Iron Range that got the green light for state loans to assist with opening a large cultivator operation.
Even cities and counties can apply to own and operate retail dispensaries, much like municipal liquor stores under the new law. The city of Osseo is already considering it, establishing a work group to come up with a plan so officials are ready to go as soon as the state opens up applications for licenses.