Hi Flora! to close in Minneapolis not long after receiving $7,500 fine over alleged violations
MINNEAPOLIS — Hi Flora!, one of the early innovators in Minnesota's budding cannabis industry, is closing up shop in early December. They opened in Minneapolis about a year and a half ago.
"It has really good energy in here. We're welcoming and people love to come here, so it's sad," owner Heather Klein said.
Hi Flora! serves plant-based food and offered low-dose THC tinctures people could add to their food or drinks or take home. They also sell THC beverages in their store.
Klein, who has been sober since 2017, said she wanted to create a fun non-alcoholic bar. She said the financial struggles started in August 2023, when the Minnesota Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) said a customer experienced a "serious adverse health event" after consuming a product.
"The paramedics said it was a little anxiety. By the time the paramedics got here, she was fine," she said.
Klein said they try to inform and educate customers about their products before they are consumed, and that the incident in August was rare. The OCM inspected the business following the incident, which led to alleged violations including selling products exceeding the legal amount of THC and allowing on-site consumption without an alcohol license.
Klein said the product they found to be over the legal limit was a concentrated ingredient used to create the lower-dose products.
"It wasn't being sold, and there was no label on it because it wasn't being sold," she said.
Due to a 2017 alcohol charge, Klein said she can't obtain a permanent liquor license for on-site consumption of low-dose hemp, even though her business is alcohol-free.
"That was my whole concept, so there's not much we can do," she said.
Klein said she was fined $7,500 for the violations. After she stopped selling the tinctures, she said sales dropped 50%.
"I had meetings with the head of the [Minnesota] health department in here, and they approved everything I was doing," she said.
But once the OCM took over in August, she said things were too difficult.
"There's no clear guidelines. They seem to changing weekly, daily sometimes," she said.
While this chapter is ending, Klein said she's hoping to reopen in some capacity, in another smaller space.
