Minnesota
Minnesota’s social equity cannabis lottery postponed to late spring
The Minnesota Office of Cannabis Management Wednesday announced it was canceling the special license lottery for social equity applicants and will instead move toward a lottery next year for both social equity and general applicants.
While no new date is set for license lotteries, a chart released by OCM suggests it will now be in May or June, months later than previous estimates of 1st quarter of 2025.
The office said it was responding to a Ramsey County court order late last month that put the lottery on hold to give disappointed applicants who were denied entry into that first lottery time to make their case to the court of appeals. At least eight legal actions have been filed with the appeals court seeking review of their cases. A ninth comes from successful lottery entrants who ask the court to let the lottery proceed soon.
Among those denied who have asked for relief from the appeals court is a group that OCM asserts is violating laws against multiple applicants for licenses and so-called straw applicants, that is applicants who are fronts for others.
“I don’t want to sugar coat this,” said OCM interim director Charlene Briner during a Wednesday press conference. “The 648 social equity applicants who qualified and were expecting to participate in the lottery are understandably disappointed.”
“To avoid further delay and risks to social equity, OCM is ending the license preapproval process and moving forward with opening a standard licensing cycle for both social equity and general applicants beginning early next year,” the agency said in a press release. “This step allows the office to prevent delays to the market launch due to ongoing litigation and retain some benefit to social equity by allowing applicants for license preapprovals to move into this new round.
“Leaving these applicants in limbo is not an acceptable outcome and would diminish their opportunity to succeed in the market.”
There are still advantages given in state law to what are called social equity applicants — military veterans, people who suffered from cannabis prohibition, and people who live in neighborhoods with high levels of enforcement. There are still license set asides for social equity applicants and grant money aimed at these potential businesses. But the so-called “early mover advantage” that was to come from the Nov. 26 lottery goes away. Early mover was meant to give some licensees certainty that they would win a license so they could get buildings, local permissions and financing in place before the launch in spring.
Other than on tribal reservations, no cannabis sales can happen until final rules are adopted, the lottery held, licenses issued and the official opening of the state cannabis market.
Sometime in late spring there will be two lotteries — one for social equity applicants and a subsequent lottery for general applicants. Briner said she expects the two lotteries will be held within days of each other. Some 500 licenses in capped categories such as cultivators, mezzobusinesses and manufacturers will be awarded in the social equity lottery and an equal number in the general lottery.
Put at risk by the cancellation of the preapproval process was a hope by legislators to allow some preapproval licensees to begin growing cannabis so a supply would be ready when stores open sometime in the spring.
“The delays related to the court’s order to pause the lottery eliminate any early-mover advantages offered by the expedited license preapproval process envisioned by the Legislature,” the OCM statement said. “Therefore, the lawsuits brought by some unsuccessful applicants necessitate moving directly to the licensing cycle for both social equity and general applicants.”
Said Briner: “Our path forward ensures we remain on track to launch Minnesota’s new cannabis market and also preserves some of the social equity benefits that were at the heart of the preapproval process and that are foundational to the law as it was originally conceived.”
The agency said it would notify the 648 applicants who survived a process that confirmed their status as social equity applicants and examined the basics of their proposed businesses that their applications will automatically move forward. Some licenses are capped by state law while others are not. The smallest businesses — so-called microbusiness licensees who can both grow and sell cannabis — are not capped.
OCM will hold a social equity lottery to award those set-aside licenses and then include non-winners in the subsequent general lottery.
“OCM will also communicate with all applicants who received denial notices about the options available to them,” the statement said. “These applicants will have the opportunity to move forward in the general licensing cycle — which includes a lottery and licenses reserved specifically for social equity applicants for certain license types — or they may choose to discontinue their participation in the next cycle and request a refund of their application fee.”
At the Court of Appeals, nine actions have been filed so far — eight seeking to force OCM to allow prospective social equity license holders to be included in the lottery and one asking the court to allow the lottery to take place with the current qualifiers.
The actions seeking court orders known as writs of certiorari ask the court of appeals to review the decision of the Ramsey County district court that blocked the lottery but did not rule on the underlying legal issues. Those were whether OCM followed state law in how it selected and rejected applicants for the first social equity license lottery that was to be held Nov. 26.
Another action is being brought by applicants who were successful in gaining entry to the lottery who claim they are being harmed by the district court’s stay of the lottery. Without it, and unless it happens soon, the advantages state law gives to social equity applicants will be reduced, if not eliminated.
“The preapproval lottery was designed to ensure the most operationally ready social equity applicants could overcome systemic barriers and lead the market’s development,” said Leili Fatehi, a spokesperson for the plaintiffs.
“By halting this process, the court’s decision harms those applicants, disrupts market stability, and delays efforts to combat illicit markets.” The action was filed before OCM’s announcement Wednesday to cancel the preapproval process.
Related
The Minnesota Yacht Club Festival is expected to bring thousands upon thousands each day to Harriet Island in St. Paul between Friday and Sunday.
“Dude, I’m excited for The Black Keys,” said Justice Czarnik of St. Paul while waiting in line to get inside.
Anticipation built on the Mississippi River before the gates opened.
“We do probably about double what we typically do on an average weekend this weekend, so it keeps us busy,” said Miranda Budach, the manager of City House, a restaurant across the river from the tunes.
“One of the stages faces directly at us so you can hear it really well,” said Budach.
The festival results in the restaurant being filled with reservations for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
“Even leading up to the festival, we’ve had people coming over that are setting up, saying, ‘We’re from Oklahoma or Texas and scoping out the area,’” Budach added.
All for names like The Black Keys, The Lumineers, The Strokes, Matchbox Twenty, Mt. Joy and a few artists from nearby.
“Yam House!” said Patti Ekman of Rochester.
Police in St. Paul say the festival is bringing nearly 35,000 to 36,000 folks into the city each day this weekend and they recognize it’s hot out. They’re asking people to be careful.
“We’ve actually equipped the ground with two empty seat-cooling buses, misting cooling fans, more tenting, several hydration stations and more,” said St. Paul Police Department Senior Commander Jesse Mollner.
“You just fill up your water bottle, a little fan on your neck and today’s going to be a great day,” said Czarnik.
The hustle and bustle also gives some the excuse to get away.
“I appreciate it brings a lot of music fans to the island, but it’s a good time to also take a trip away from it because we’re so close to it,” said Paul Thomas of St. Paul.
“Stay cool, drink lots of water,” said Budach. “It’s gonna be hot.”
Metro Transit has multiple bus and light rail routes ready to serve the festival.
Minnesota
Wildfire smoke from Canada and Minnesota pushes further into US, engulfing DC in eerie haze
NEW YORK (AP) — Millions of people in the Great Lakes, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states muddled through another day of unhealthy air from uncontrolled wildfires on Friday, as smoke enveloped the nation’s capital in a gloomy, eerie haze.
Air quality warnings were expected to remain in effect through Saturday across a wide swath of the U.S., but there’s potential for temporary relief with rains and storms forecast over a chunk of the affected region over the weekend.
The smoky conditions won’t be gone anytime soon, though, as fires burn unchecked across a remote region of Canada, cautioned Bob Oravec, a lead forecaster at the National Weather Service based in Maryland. Wildfires in a wilderness area in Minnesota are also contributing to the smoke.
“The source of the smoke is going to continue on for certainly a week, probably,” he said. “So in some form, there’s going to be smoke that gets transported from the fires downstream, and it’s just going to depend upon which way the wind’s blowing as to where the smoke is going to affect the most.”
On Friday, communities in Minnesota, Michigan and Illinois closest to the Canadian border and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota again registered some of the worst air quality in the world, according to IQAir, an air quality monitoring website.
Not far behind them was Washington, D.C., where the thick smoke created eerie scenes. The Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and other national landmarks could be seen enveloped in a thick, orange-hued haze in the morning.
“Wow that Canadian smoke haze is no joke,” Stewart Verdery, a former assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, wrote on X as he shared a panorama of D.C. at sunrise. “Almost nothing visible – no sun, no monuments, no Reagan Airport.”
Air in and around Washington was expected to go from bad to worse as the day progressed, reaching “very unhealthy” and potentially “hazardous” levels on the air quality index, regional officials said.
People, particularly those with heart or lung disease, older adults and children, were urged to limit or avoid going outside as much as possible until air quality improved.
There was also concern in the New York City area about how the foul air might impact the World Cup final match between soccer powerhouses Spain and Argentina at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on Sunday.
Oravec said winds will continue pushing the wildfire smoke east in the U.S., though conditions should be better on game day Sunday than on Saturday.
Just a day earlier, a thick haze tinged with orange and yellow darkened skies across several states and partly obscured Manhattan’s skyline.
Officials from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and other Northeast states distributed free K95 face masks, canceled outdoor programming and opened libraries and other public buildings as cooling centers where people could get a respite from the sooty air.
As Friday progressed, air quality measures improved from “unhealthy” to “moderate” in some places in and around New York City.
A strong sun broke through a thin veil of smoke, and large chunks of clear blue sky were visible across much of the region by Friday afternoon.
Saturday brings a high chance of thunderstorms across much of the Northeast and mid-Atlantic, which will help dampen the bad air.
How long the reprieve lasts depends on what happens hundreds of miles north, as some 100 wildfires burn without end in sight, largely in the Ontario area in Canada. In the U.S., officials have closed the Boundary Waters while battling multiple fires.
Long-term exposure to smoky conditions can complicate existing health problems and lead to chronic and deadly issues, including respiratory illness, cardiovascular and neurological diseases and premature death.
See how the bald eagle’s story shows its enduring symbolism
As the U.S. celebrates 250 years, the bald eagle endures as North America’s native sea eagle and national bird.
The common loon, Minnesota’s state bird, is more closely related to a penguin than a duck.
Despite loons predominantly living in the northern hemisphere and penguins mostly living in the southern hemisphere, researchers consider them to be genetic cousins. Taxonomic analyses placed them in an evolutionary cluster tracing back 40 million to 50 million years ago, along with herons and pelicans.
While loons and ducks share habitat on Minnesota lakes, they aren’t close relatives. Ducks are closer cousins to geese and swans.
After sharing a common ancestor, penguins and loons developed distinct characteristics. Loons can fly, but struggle to move on land; penguins can’t fly, but waddle on land. Penguins use flipper-like wings to swim; loons use webbed feet for underwater propulsion.
They have some similar features, however, including dense bones to help dive underwater and their tuxedo coloring.
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