Minneapolis, MN
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 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.
A shooting in north Minneapolis injured two men on Friday night.
Minneapolis police said officers responded around 9:30 p.m. Friday after multiple reports of gunfire near Lowry Avenue North and North Logan Avenue.Police said they found two men with gunshot wounds outside a home.
Officers said both men were outside when the gunfire started and a nearby hospital treated both men for non-life-threatening injuries.
Police are still investigating. Officers said no arrests have been made.
This is a developing story; check back for updates.
A 19-year-old man is injured after a shooting in north Minneapolis on Friday, according to police.
Officers responded to the incident on the 2600 block of North Humboldt Avenue at 5:03 p.m. Officials said they found the man inside a home with apparent gunshot wounds that were not life-threatening.
The officers provided medical aid before the man was taken to the hospital, police said.
According to investigators, the man was outside the home when shots were fired and ran inside after he was injured.
Police said Friday night that no arrests had been made and that they were working to learn what led to the shooting.
The Blueprint
A team led by Lupe Development Partners and Wall Cos. wants to bring more than 100 units of affordable senior housing to a triangular parking area near the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, the latest version of a yearslong effort to redevelop the site.
On Thursday, the Minneapolis Planning Commission Committee of the Whole reviewed plans for the five-story, 104-unit building at 600 Main St. SE. The project would require a comprehensive plan amendment, rezoning and other approvals.
Jess Olstad, a city spokesperson, said in an email that the committee took no formal action.
“The next step for the project team will be to conduct public engagement around their potential comprehensive plan amendment, and to prepare their land use applications for submittal,” Olstad said.
Steve Minn, vice president and chief financial manager of Lupe Development, said Friday that the project received “very positive feedback” from the committee.
“We’re just going to proceed with the rest of our application, which will be in the next week or so,” said Minn, who added that the proposed location is a “perfect site for housing” and that “senior housing is a need.”
A comprehensive plan amendment would require Metropolitan Council review. If the approval process goes well and financing comes together next year, the project could break ground in 2028, Minn said.
A 58-space “principal parking facility” currently occupies the 37,401-square-foot development site, which is framed by Sixth Avenue Southeast, Main Street Southeast, and a railroad property, according to a city staff report.
The project would primarily offer one-bedroom units, though the mix would also include some two-bedroom dwellings and efficiencies. Thirty-nine stalls of underground parking are also planned.
Located near the Stone Arch Bridge trailhead in the Mississippi River Critical Area Overlay District, the project would be “compatible with the surrounding neighborhood architecture,” according to a narrative submitted on behalf of the developer.
The plan includes site improvements such as structured parking and pedestrian spaces, and a new public trail, which would connect to existing Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board trails in Father Hennepin Bluffs Park.
According to the developer’s narrative, the project “represents a reinvestment in a privately owned, undeveloped parcel that is not used for park purposes and is not planned for acquisition.”
The project would align the property’s “land use, built form, and Mississippi River Corridor Critical Area Overlay District designations with the surrounding urban context and applicable regulatory framework,” the narrative states.
Wall Cos. and Lupe Development Partners, doing business as Bluff Street Development, have long wanted to redevelop 600 Main St. SE. In 2023, the developers pitched a plan for 80 affordable housing units on the site.
The developers’ history with the site goes back as far as 2009, when they proposed separate plans for a 98-unit and a 79-unit apartment project, as previously reported. In 2010, Bluff Street sued the city after the City Council rejected the plans. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2011.
When development efforts first started, the Mississippi River Critical Corridor Area rules and regulations had not been defined, and “there was a lot of angst in the community” about what those regulations would be, Minn said.
Those regulations are now “well defined,” clearing the way for development, he said.
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